New Wine Vaults

An early reference gives it as Weakley’s Tap, in Cherry Garden Street, on the corner of Spiller’s Ope, suggesting that this was the back bar of a large hotel in Fore Street, Devonport. Later this became the Royal Hotel and later still it would appear to have been re-invented as the New Wine Vaults, under which guise it continued to operate until the early years of the twentieth century.

By that time Cherry Garden Street had become York Street; Spiller’s Ope had been re-designated Lambert Street and the premises itself renumbered – from 42 to 35.

It is quite possible that all the re-branding was part of a redevelopment of the area and an attempt to rid the immediate area of past associations, whatever the rationale at the time, from this perspective it makes for a confusing exercise.

Licensees

1822 - H Martin
1852 - Benjamin Moon
1862 - Edwin Parker
1865 - Robert Lean
1873 - M Cumming
1882 - CA Drew
1885 - David Davies
1888 - William Crossman
1898 - Thomas Vere
1907 - C Ducroq