Seahorse Inn

There are a number of Seahorse Inns dotted around the country – in Scarborough, Porthcawl, Dyfed, Folkestone, New Romney, Sheerness, etc. – invariably in coastal locations. Plymouth, while it no longer boasts a pub of that name – it stood in Devonport, on the south eastern corner of Pembroke Street and Monument Street – does have a fine collection of Sea Horses in the National Marine Aquarium. These remarkably tiny, and graceful creatures have bewitched generations of seafarers as they appear to have the foreparts of a horse and the tail of a fish and until encountered in the flesh were likely to be dismissed as mythical creatures. Locally it is quite likely that the pub name came from one of the nine HMS Seahorses that had been launched prior to 1840, possibly the seventh, launched at Harwich in 1748 and on which a young Horatio Nelson served as a midshipman.

Licensees

1847 - Samuel Parsons
1862 - John Ackland