Lord Raglan

A modest beerhouse, the Lord Raglan stood on the western side of Pym Street, due north of, and the other side of Devonport Park from, Raglan Barracks. It was in 1852, the year we first find reference to this pub, that the sixty-four-year-old military hero Lord Fitzroy Somerset was created Baron Raglan of Raglan. Thirty-seven years earlier he had stood alongside his wife’s uncle, the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo, and had been struck in the elbow with a bullet, necessitating the immediate amputation of his arm (hence the Raglan sleeve).

It was also in 1852 that the grand old Duke of Wellington died, aged 83, and with war once again looming, Raglan was put in charge of the troops in Crimea, a position he still held the following year when he died. The war had not yet ended but his death helped preserve a threatened reputation. The Crimean War had not been one of Britain’s better campaigns. Back home meanwhile the barracks bearing Raglan’s name were still under construction and the pub bearing his name was open for business. It closed seventy-two years later, in January 1927, while the barracks survived until the 1970s.

Licensees

1852 - Simon Dell
1857 - Charles Cole
1862 - William Clemence
1864 - Mrs Jane Faulkener
1877 - G Willcocks
1888 - Eli Dawe
1895 - William Munn
1902 - F Dowkes
1906 - Mrs F Finson
1908 - Mrs Smith
1913 - W Pack
1920 - Simon Broad