Stockport Historic Pub Walk

Listed Grade II

A red brick building of 1911, which retains a suite of five rooms (Tap Room, Smoke Room, Bar Parlour, Commercial Room, and a separate Billiard Room), as well as an Off-sales department, although this is no longer in use.

It has a fine mosaic floor in the outer lobby, and retains good quality tiles, woodwork and glass. Note the bell-pushes in the Bar Parlour for summoning service, and the numbers on the doors, once required by law to show which rooms were included in the ‘licensed’ part of the premises.

Although there has been some alteration (the bar-back was replaced in about 1980), it remains a fine example of a multiroomed pub of the early 20th century.

Listed Grade II

A small, narrow pub originally established in 1764 as ‘Turner’s Vaults’. The three room interior was remodelled in about 1930, and again in 1990, when a side passageway was incorporated into the main rooms, the bar counter altered and the bar back replaced.

The interior consists of the main bar, a tiny ‘horse-box’ bar, lit by a skylight, with seating for only six, and another small room to the rear with benches down both sides. The two sets of spirit cocks on the top of the bar counter, which until 1935 served spirits from the stores in the wine merchant’s premises above, are a very rare survival.

Tiny pubs like this were once common in towns across England; very few now survive.

Listed Grade II

Built in 1815, and owned by the Raffald family (the first landlord, George, was a nephew of Elizabeth Raffald, one of the first ‘domestic goddesses’, and publisher of the first Manchester directory), and sold to Robinson’s Brewery in about 1889.

It has a high-quality, multi-roomed interior, with quarry-tiled floors, original bench seating in the Vault, and much varnished woodwork and etched and engraved glass. The rooms have numbers on the doors, as once required by licensing law.

An exceptionally rare survival is a tiny snug called the ‘Select’, which can only be entered through the servery with the permission of the bar staff, and which would presumably once have been reserved for use by the landlord’s closest friends.

Other rare features are the tables in the Vault which incorporate bell- pushes to summon service, and the hand-pumps fixed to the bar-back fitting rather than to the counter.