Painter’s Arms (Batter Street)

It stood near the top of what was then known as Higher Batter Street but which today is just Batter Street, in that section between Looe Street and Stillman Street. By a strange quirk of fate the Painter’s would have overlooked the building that for the last sixty years or so has housed Plymouth’s Arts Centre, where one of Plymouth’s most celebrated (adopted) painters – Beryl Cook – had her first exhibition, however the pub was long closed by the time the Arts Centre opened here. However it is more likely that the pub is named after Master John Paynter, five times mayor of Plymouth who had a substantial property nearby in the early sixteenth century (indeed Catherine of Aragon is thought to have stayed there for two weeks prior to going to London, when she first arrived in England). The house was known as Paynter’s house for centuries afterwards.

Licensees

1850 - William Yabsley
1865 - HB Frood
1867 - George Knapman