• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Rattlebones Inn & Other Pub Names

freakinhungles said:
In Guildford, there's a place called The Rat's Castle. Its the only exciting one I can think of where I live!
Click to expand...

There is (or was) a pub called The Rats Castle, on the Hatfield Road, in St Alban's, Hertfordshire.

The story of it's name, as I remember it, was that it was built on the site of an old ruin of a house, full of rats!!!!
 
I daresay it's not that unusual, but there's a Three Legged Mare in York, referring of course to the style of gallows rather than an unfortunate horse.
 
Macky~ said:
There is also a 'Quiet Woman' at Earl Sterndale, nr Buxton, Derbyshire. Their sign sports a headless former landlady, whose constant nagging was ended abuptly with her beheading.
They do nice pork pies there too.Grow the pigs themselves.
Click to expand...

There's a Quiet Woman near Wareham in Dorset, too.

In Plaxtol, Kent there was the Rorty Crankle (Allegedly Anglo-Saxon for 'good health') but it is a pub no longer.

The Flying Saucer is near Hempstead Valley, iirc.
 
AFAIK "Rorty Crankle" means "Happy (as in tipsy) Corner".
 
Eeeeh! Seeing the sign of The Bucket of Blood really makes me nostalgic.
*Sigh*

There's a pub in Chelmsford, right near the railway station, which is decorated with plenty of railway memorabilia (unsurprisingly) and the rear part of the bar is laid out as a train restaurant car! I think the pub is called The Pullman.
 
Talking of Bucket Of Blood... That was the original name for the marvellously rickety and relatively unspoiled (it'd be even less unspoiled if they'd left the wobbly old partition in, but that's another story) Lamb And Flag in London's Covent Garden. I think the name came from the bare-knuckle boxing matches they used to have there. It's a thoroughly respectable (if a bit hard to find) boozer these days, but must have a had a bit of a rep back in the day. In 1679, the poet John Dryden got a severe shoeing in the alleyway next to the pub.
 
"So he walked through the rain and he walked through the mud
Till he came to a place called The Bucket Of Blood

Stagger Lee.."
 
In Linlithgow there is a pub called The Black Bitch (it refers do a dog , rather than anything racist).

Does a good pint though.

In Edinburgh there is the Cabbage & Ribs , as well as Dirty Dicks and The Tickled Trout.
 
Dogs names, there is a pub in Calne on the london road called `the Talbot` (a long extinct breed of hunting hound)

There usede to be a pub here (Purton, near Swindon) called `The Live and let live` but its now closed. (still got the sign)

Another of our pubs used to be by the station, called `the Main line` but the station closed so now the best pub in purton is called `The ghost train`

(another now closed pub was called `The Hope`
 
Saw recently (at a distance) a Cornish pub called the Clock and Key.

A Google turns up a single mention of it, with no details except a phone number. Seems like a visit may be called for! 8)
 
I see the Frog and Radiator in Greenwich has now gone back to it's original name, the Ship and Billet.

Nissemus, you were right about the meaning of 'Rorty Crankle', btw.

Then there is the Ship on Shore in Sheerness, made from barrels of Portland cement, retrieved from a wreck some time in the late 18th century:

http://www.pbase.com/luckytrev/shiponshore
 
There's a Pub in Lathom, Lancs called "the Ship", but known colloquially as "The Blood Tub", as they used to make Black Puddings on the Premises.
 
Good thread :)
In my town there is a Nobody Inn, named and run by my mum's partner's daughter's partner. (phew). It always has somebody inn as it is a great little place but bloody tiny.
Also a Muddle Go Nowhere- a soulless chain pub but with a local name- it was named after the roundabout it stands next to which is a muddle and doesn't really go anywhere. (Our road planners are surely famous County- wide for their bungling and apathy).
Another nice one is the Odd House, a tiny place on the end of a row of terraced houses, obviously converted from a house years ago. Its so small and such an unlikely place for a pub that it's very suited.
We also have the Stagger Inn; my artist friend painted the signs for both the Nobody and the Stagger. The Nobody has a welcoming Eddie (the landlord) with his arms outstretched, welcoming the viewer into a jolly crowd of laughing people. The Stagger has two round and merry- looking Breughel people dancing, clearly in the midst of some beery village celebration.
Nearby in one of the villages is the widely known Dirty Duck; its proper name is the Rutland Arms but the sign from the road has two ducks going at it (complete with male holding the back of female's neck in his beak).
 
Pub named after pig elected best
Last Updated: 2:32am GMT 15/02/2008

A pub named after a pig has been elected the best in Britain.

The Old Spot Inn, in Dursley, Glos, was praised yesterday by the Campaign for Real Ale as a well-run community pub.

The century-old free house, owned by Ric Saintly and run by Steve and Belinda Herbert, is named after the Gloucestershire Old Spot breed.

The award from Camra coincides with the launch of a campaign to encourage people to visit pubs during this traditionally quiet time of year.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... pub115.xml
 
Oooh, I've not seen this thread before :D Some good old names mentioned.

Adding to the list, there used to be a "Who'd A Tho't It?" in Crowthorne, near Wokingham in Berkshire. Sadly it closed about five years ago, was bulldozed, and now a load of flats stands on the site.
 
As far as i know there still is a Who'da thought it in Kent, although the precise location eludes me right now.
 
There was also a Who'd A Thought It on Plumstead Common, SE London. Not to mention a World Turned Upside Down on the Old Kent Road. Sorry ... I forgot to add "Gorblimey!"
 
There was also a "Frog & Nightgown" on the Old Kent Road, for a few years. Up by the Bricklayers Arms flyover. From memory, a late sixties development, that lasted about ten years, before becoming offices. Probably, too close to the Swan, another late sixties redevelopment of a Victorian boozer. I never went in the new Swan, but can remember the one it replaced. All dark wood & long cut glass mirrors!!!!

The name I think referred to a Ted Ray (the comic not the golfer), radio program, where he would head off down to the "Frog & Nightgown".
 
My ol' Mum used to brag about the pubs she'd worked in on the Old Kent Road (she left the army after the end of the war and took up bar work), including the Frog, The World Turned and the Thomas A' Becket ... which had a boxing gym in the upper floors at which Henry Cooper used to train. From last recollection, the pubs name had changed to the Henry Cooper in honour of the fighter.
 
Drove past a pub called the Rag & Louse in Yeadon yesterday... wonder how that got it's name?! :?
 
There's a pub in Eversley, Hampshire, which used to be called Le Toad & Stumps (it's now called The Cross). I assume the stumps is a reference to the local cricket pitch (which is supposed to be the oldest functioning cricket pitch in England), but I have no idea what Le Toad refers to :?
 
I thin kthe oddest name I have come across is I Am The Only Running Footman in Mayfair.
 
Stormkhan said:
My ol' Mum used to brag about the pubs she'd worked in on the Old Kent Road (she left the army after the end of the war and took up bar work), including the Frog, The World Turned and the Thomas A' Becket ... which had a boxing gym in the upper floors at which Henry Cooper used to train. .......
Click to expand...

I seem to remember that in the 1950's-1960's, the Thomas A' Becket had the only licenced female boxing trainer in Britain. Her dad had run the pub & gym before her etc...
 
One of my favourite pub names is a Liverpool pub that dates back to the 18th century called The Throstles Nest. An unusal enough name but its the pub sign that is most interesting as it is a large question mark. Evidently whoever painted it didnt have a clue what a throstle is ( i think its an old name for thrush) but painted the sign anyway.
I also like dialect names for pubs like Buck i'th' Vine which is in Lancashire.
One of my friends misheard this name as buckets fine! which would be a really weird name for a pub.
I also like pubs that are known locally by a completely different name to the official name such as The Slipway, again in Lancashire which is better know locally as the blood tub, not for any gruesome murder but because the pub was local to a slaughter house and the workers there used it.
BTW I don't think that modern odd pub names should be included in this discussion as it was trendy a while back for marketing men to choose the most way out name they could get away with for their chain pubs. Which is strange as these chain pubs are all identical when you get inside them.
 
mugwumpaddict said:
......I also like pubs that are known locally by a completely different name to the official name......
Click to expand...

In this theme, I can think of the "Bushel & Strike" in Ashwell, Hertfordshire, that's localy known as the "Thirst after righteousness" as it's across the road from the church & the now demolished "New Inn" on the A600, North of Hitchin, Herts. By a couple of miles, that was known as the "Dirt House", as for many years Hitchin's waste was dumped in the fields around it.

Finally, there's the "Mops & Brooms" at Well End, East of Boreham Wood, Herts. For many years the Lord Nelson. But after a fight in the 1900's between gypsey poachers & local gamekeepers, the gypseys were "broom squires" & used their stock in trade as weapons, the gamekeepers used mops from the pub. Finally, in I think, the 1950's rebuild, the brewery gave the pub the name everyone had been calling it for years....
 
Many years ago I was a student in Portsmouth which had a splendid selection of pub names: The Electric Arms, The Wheelbarrow, The Fawcett Inn!!, The Gravediggers Arms, and The Florist being just a few of them. whether any of these pubs survive I have no idea as it has been many years since I visited Pompey. :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top