Sawyer’s Arms

The bottom end of St Andrew Street was refashioned towards the end of the nineteenth century and in the process the building that formerly housed the Sawyer’s Arms disappeared. St Andrew Street is one of Plymouth’s oldest thoroughfares and there were five pubs here in the middle of the nineteenth century, including the oldest – the medieval Turk’s Head, demolished in 1861.

The Sawyer’s, conveniently enough, had a malt house backing on to it from Finewell Street. The name itself allegedly harks back to the days when most timber sawing was done by hand, bigger jobs done by two men with a substantial log (dog) the ‘top dog’ working above the saw pit and the underdog standing in the pit – and getting covered in saw dust.

Licensees

1857 - James Marshall
1862 - M Nixon
1865 - John Ford
1867 - Samuel Southcott