This Regent Road boozer on the corner of West Peel Street started out as the Monarch Brewery Vaults and although it quickly changed its name after opening in 1861 to the General Havelock. The Monarch Brewery lasted 20 years but the pub remained after it was demolished, changing back to the Monarch Brewery Vaults in 1867, then to the Cambridge Inn a year later. A grisly tale from Neil Richardson's book - when licensee, Richard McDermott, refused to serve a chap called Michael Johnson who was drunk, Johnson returned to the Cambridge and stabbed a customer, Patrick Nurney. He was hanged at Strangeways three months later [1].
Gloucester Arms, Regent Road, Salford. (c) Salford Pubs of the 70s at flickr [2].
Walkers & Homfray bought the Cambridge in 1898, by which time the pub was being advertised as the Cambridge Music Hall. The brewery rebuilt the Cambridge Inn on the same site and licensee, William Whitehead, who moved here from the Railway at Pomona Docks, continued to advertise as a Music Hall. Unfortunately, the music licence was revoked in 1916 when the police complained that it was used by "foreign seaman and a large number of females, including young girls." In the 1930s the Cambridge was renamed the Gloucester Arms and became a Wilsons house in the '60s. Greater Manchester Council acquired the Gloucester in the '70s due to their plans to widen Regent Road, but they didn't demolish it straight away. Instead, they leased it to David Pollard, whose Stockport microbrewery supplied the ales, although this only lasted three years and the Gloucester closed for good in 1982 [1].
1. Salford Pubs - Part Two: Including Islington, Ordsall Lane and Ordsall, Oldfield Road, Regent Road and Broughton, Neil Richardson (2003).
2. www.flickr.com/photos/61756486@N05.
sang at the Gloucester in 1960, great pub
ReplyDeleteHi, do you know who the landlord was at the time?x
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