Napier Inn

Tom Jones was apparently the first to sell beer here, he was also listed as a tailor – in those days it was not unusual to have such dual function premises. When Sam Goss took over, later in the 1850s the pub was listed as the Napier Inn, after the British naval veteran, Charles Napier.

Napier had joined the Navy in 1799, at the age of thirteen: nine years later he was given command of his first ship, the 18-gun Recruit, and in 1854 he was sent out to take command of the British Fleet in the Crimea. Asked to ‘strike his flag’ (retire) on his return, Napier worked towards reform of naval administration until his death in 1860.

Napier was further commemorated in the naming of a pub in Plymouth and the memorial garden just inside the entrance to the then newly laid out Devonport Park. The Fore Street pub closed in the late 1880s and made way for the new Aggie Weston’s Royal Sailors’ Rest.

Licensees

1852 - Thomas Jones
1857 - Sam Goss
1862 - John Rowe
1865 - Daniel Harrington
1867 - Susan Moore
1877 - WH Waterfield