Pub names

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m not sure if this should be MPSIMS or IMHO. Apologies if goes all poll-shaped.

I’m having random thoughts about pub names, brought on by a believable story I heard recently. In the London suburb where I live there are a huge number pubs, most of which I may have frequented. The story I heard explains the founding of four of them. Originally, the area was home to a large number of labourers from all parts of the UK, trying to make some money in the capital working on those newfangled railway tracks. Unfortunately, one side-effect was massive drunken rucks at weekends when the various groups attempted to lamp seven bells out of each other.

The railway companies hit upon the brilliant plan of setting up separate pubs to keep the warring factions apart. Hence the creation of the Edinboro Castle (yes, I know it’s the wrong spelling) for the Scots, the Windsor Castle for the English, the Dublin Castle for the Irish and the Pembroke Castle for the Welsh. Unfortunately, times change. The Edinboro Castle is a fairly decent boozer, the Dublin Castle a slightly seedier indie music joint, the Pembroke Castle an upmarket (but not terrible) ‘gastropub’ (£4 Hoegaardens all round!) and the Windsor Castle has, I think, morphed into the awful pine-effect “NW1: The Bar”. Its previous incarnation as a tobacco-stained slum showing Irish cable TV was still vastly preferable to this latest sterile media-yuppie DIY wank-fantasy.

Anyway, this led me to thinking about pub names in general. I remember as a child being taken to a pub called “The Leg Of Mutton And Cauliflower”, long before CAMRA started getting hacked off at tacky beer and pub names.

So what are the stories behind your local pubs? I’d rather avoid the ones with the deliberately contrived names (no “Slug And Lettuce” or “Rat And Parrot” please) and stick to the ones with a real interesting history. Oh, and if anyone knows what in the name of Greek buggery “Monkeychews” is supposed to mean I’d be grateful.

2

Here in Sydney, we don’t quite match the Poms for cool pub names, but there are still some good ones (newer, contrived ones excluded):

The Cat and Fiddle
The Cauliflower
The Iron Duke (now a wanky place called McEvoys :frowning: )
The Bat and Ball (not far from the SCG)
The Dolphin
The Fortune of War
The First and Last (used to be a sailors’ pub at the Quay, hence the name. It’s gone now)
The Orient (also a former sailors’ pub, now boring and trendy)
Billy the Pig’s (named after a long-gone publican, IIRC)
The Student Prince (near the uni)
The Tea Gardens
The Evil Star (actually, the Evening Star, but the nickname is decades old)
The Three Weeds (actually the Rose, Shamrock, and Thistle, also a very old nickname, semi-official now).
The White Cockatoo

3

There’s a pub/restaurant in the Village in NYC called “The Slaughtered Lamb.” I tend to avoid that one. :eek:

4

A restaurant in Corona del Mar (new Newport Beach), California, USA is called “The Quiet Woman”. Their sign has a drawing of a woman’s body with no head.

5

In Victoria, BC, there’s a pub called Garrick’s Head. Not sure what it means, but I’ve always liked the name.

6

In Brunswick St. Fitzroy (Melbourne) there is the ‘Perseverence’ which is just across the road from a pub that was once called the ‘Labour in Vain’.
Most pubs in Aus however are called ‘The Station’, ‘The Commercial’ or the ‘Rubbity Round the Corner’. :smiley:

7

yeah, we have one of these in Columbus OH too.

My fave is a new bar. It used to be called The Red Zone. A normal club, seedy and all. Then it closed down and re-opened. Now it’s the O-Zone. Web site? www.asianozone.com. I have nothing against asians, hi tam and minh, but really; an asian club in mid-ohio?

8

There’s also Pogue Mahones here in Melbourne. It’s one of those traditional Irish pubs that seem to be sweeping the world. You can tell it’s Irish when they stick a couple of copper kettles around the walls and put Fir and Mena on the shithouse doors. The name is an anglicisation of Póg mo thóin. A traditional greeting to be used exclusively with RUC and Orange Order types in the north of Ireland.

9

There’s a pub not too far from where I live which says “Kavanaghs” over the door, but is universally known as the Gravediggers’ (reason being it’s adjacent to Glasnevin Cemetery). I don’t think anyone would know what you were talking about if you called it Kavanaghs.

BTW…

Am I the only one who finds this vaguely horrifying?

10

I remember one somewhat near where I live called “The Happy Lawyer.” Its sign featured a decapitated man in mid-1800’s clothing holding a briefcase in one hand and his head in the other. The head is, of course, smiling.

11

The Dublin Castle! Yay! I been very drunk in there on several occasions! :smiley:

As for pubs round my area, not much of interest really…
The Crown & Anchor used to be known as the Glass House, as it was the first pub to start using glass instead of pewter & lead tankards…
However to spice things up, we will shortly be getting the sheer joy that will be the Excalibar, a mediaeval themed pub… :rolleyes:
I’ll be going down in my suit of armour with my bardiche to kick some wanky yuppy arse.

12

Just a guess, peanuts?

In what respect do you use it?

13

We’ve got “The Bird In Hand”, “The Barley Mow” “Stan Laurel Inn” “Old Friends Inn” “The Piel Castle” and lots of others. Ulverston is very well kitted out with pubs.

14

It’s the name of my local pub.

15

A not to all non-Irish people reading.

If a bar claims to be Irish, and has kettles and Bicycles hanging off the roof, it is not an Irish bar. It is “Oirish”. Nuke them from orbit. Its the only way to be sure.

The only real criteria for being an Irish pub is to have a barman who can pull a proper pint of Guinness, a selection of Whiskey’s behind the bar and a jar of “fixer” behind the bar :wink:

16

What Twisty said. Oirish pubs playing authentic Oirish music and serving authentic Oirish drinks and full of authentic Oirish tat are the worst kind of pubs in existence. I’d rather drink in a Wetherspoon’s or a Firkin than in one of those “hey look, we’re really genuine” holes.

17

Well, this is quite a tenuous connection but I occasionally wash up in to The George and Dragon in Downe Village. I now live pretty much on a clear border between urban London and suburbia (it all changes in about three streets). Suburbia lasts for three or four miles before the countryside begins. Downe Village is another two miles on.

It’s a cracking little village completely off the beaten track with three decent boozers, the usual olde church, village store, etc. and, a little up the road, Darwin House.

It’s just a nice country pub where I like to have a bite to eat, a Light Ale and just imagine what it may have been like 150 years ago – the people pottering around, the carriages churning down the lanes, the rural economy This is an extract of a letter sent by the owner of (what became known as) Darwin House shortly after moving to Downe:
<quote>
To Catherine Darwin [24 July 1842]
[12 Upper Gower Street]
Sunday

My dear Catty
You must have been surprised at not having heard sooner about the House… Emma & I only returned yesterday afternoon from sleeping there.-I will give you in detail, as my Father would like, my opinion on it.-Emma’s slightly differs.-Position.-about ¼ of a mile from small village of Down in Kent 16 miles from St. Pauls-eight miles & ½ from station, (with many trains) which station is only 10 miles from London-This is bad, as the drive from the hills is long.-I calculate we are two hour’s journey from London Bridge… Village about 40 houses with old walnut trees in middle where stands an old flint Church & the lanes meet-Inhabitants very respectable.-infant school-grown up people great musicians-all touch their hats as in Wales, & sit at their open doors in evening, no high-road leads through village.-The little pot-house, where we slept is a grocers-shop & the land-lord is the carpenter-so you may guess style of village-There are butcher & baker & post-office.-A carrier goes weekly to London & calls anywhere for anything in London, & takes anything anywhere.-On the road to the village, on fine day scenery absolutely beautiful: from close to our house, view, very distant & rather beautiful-but house being situated on rather high table-land, has somewhat of desolate air-There is most beautiful old farm-house with great thatched barns & old stumps, of oak-trees like that of Shelton, one field off.-The charm of the place to me is that almost every field is intersected (as alas is our’s) by one or more foot-paths-I never saw so many walks in any other country-The country is extraordinarily rural & quiet with narrow lanes & high hedges & hardly any ruts-It is really surprising to think London is only 16 miles off.-The house stands very badly close to a tiny lane & near another man’s field-Our field is 15 acres & flat, looking into flat-bottomed valleys on both sides, but no view form drawing-room, wh: faces due South except our own flat field & bits of rather ugly distant horizon.-Close in front, there are some old (very productive) cherry-trees, walnut-trees-yew.-spanish-chesnut,-pear-old larch, scotch-fir & silver fir & old mulberry-trees make rather a pretty group-They give the ground an old look, but from not flourishing much also give it rather a desolate look. There are quinces & medlars & plums with plenty of fruit, & Morells-cherries, but few apples.-The purple magnolia flowers against house: There is a really fine beech in view in our hedge.-The Kitchen garden is a detestable slip & the soil looks wretched from quantity of chalk flints; but I really believe it is productive. The hedges grow well all round our field, & it is a noted piece of Hay-land This year the crop was bad, but was bought, as it stood for 2£ per acre, that: is 30£.-the purchaser getting it in-Last year it was sold for £45.-no manure put on in interval. Does not this sound well ask my father? Does the mulberry & magnolia show it is not very cold in winter, which I fear is the case.-tell Susan it is 9 miles from Knole Park-6 from Westerham-seven from Seven-Oaks-at all which places I hear scenery is beautiful.-There are many odd views round our house deepish flat-bottomed valley & nice farm-house, but big white, many, ugly fallow fields; much wheat grown here – --…etc, etc…
Charles Darwin.

</quote>

Several family members are buried in the churchyard directly across the road from the pub – in fact, Darwin himself wanted to be buried there but, on his death, his peers persuaded his family that Westminster Abbey was more appropriate. I’d imagine that decision rather saved the village from some of the horrors of modern tourism.

For the purposes of this thread, The George and Dragon has a ‘Darwin Bar’. Although I’m not sure if Charlie ever stuck his head in the door, he must certainly must have walked past it most days.

Excellent pub food, good choice of beers, lovely location and a bit of history thrown in: A nice Sunday lunchtime ! - and does that sound like I’m getting old…

18

Not quite sure how many of Auckland’s bars would qualify to be called “pubs” any longer (in the local Yellow Pages they come under “Bars & Brasseries”), but here’s a few names:

Ambassador Bar
Bikini Bar
Brownie’s Bar
Cirque Bar
Cock & Bull
Empire Tavern
Harbour Lights
Judder Bar (this makes me smile a tad)
Milestone Bar
New Brew Tavern
Peninsula Inn (has a couple of bars, one called Auckland)
The Elbow Room

Most of these could very well be yuppie-traps. My fellow Kiwis around here might be able to help better define their local watering holes.

I’m trawling old newspapers at the moment on-line. Back in 1848, we had:

Prince Albert
Duke of Marlborough
Exchange Hotel
Blue Bell
New Leith Inn
Ship Inn
Commercial Inn
Windsor Castle
Devonshire Inn
Caledonian Hotel
Freemason’s Hotel
Osprey Inn
Crown and Anchor
Auckland Hotel
Union Hotel
Royal Hotel
New Zealand Hotel

None of which exist today. Pity.

19

That’s a cheeky name…

20

Here in Boston there’s a pub called the Elephant & Castle which I understand is named after a pub called the Elephant & Castle in Dublin.* I think it’s the oddest name. Anyone know its derivation?