When I was the editor of ‘the tippler’, the magazine for the Gloucestershire branches of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), I wrote this article for the Summer 2007 edition:

It seems that every time that you read the local newspapers there are reports of ASBO’s being handed out to juvenile offenders for petty crimes, drug-offences and anti-social behaviour. There are repeated cries for harsher cries, stricter sentences by the authorities with the inevitable remark by the older generation: “we didn’t have bad behaviour like that in our day.” Consider then the plight of a poor Richard Partridge, an umbrella manufacturer, who was aggrieved by the raucous antics of the customers frequented the Bell Hotel Tap which was situated on the corner of Winchcombe Street and the High Street where the TSB Bank now stands. The year was 1903. John Jackson, a fruiterer and greengrocer also complained that the Bell Tap “stopped a lot of respectable people going into the street for trading purposes.” Walter Vale, another greengrocer, supported the stance to close down the Bell Tap claiming that it was a ‘low conducted house’ and the local police were concerned that the sanitary arrangements in the pub were inadequate.

The reason for their indignation was the conduct of the Bell Tap had been bad and that the licensee, Mr Fisher, had ‘allowed a concertina to be played there frequently and was a source of much nuisance.’ (source Gloucestershire Echo 12th March 1903)

The Bell Hotel Tap is behind the pony and trap.

Landlords:

1844 Richard Glover (also listed at the Bell Inn, 107 High Street)

1856 G. Andrews (Bell, Winchcombe Street)

1870 Henry Evans

1883 J. Sole

1885 Thomas Page

1891 J.H. Morgan

1902 Albert Henry Ginman

1903 Mr. Fisher

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