The Bull Inn, on the corner of Church Street and Bury Bar Lane, had opened by 1702. A Friendly Society met at the Bull in 1819.
Towards the end of the reign of Queen Victoria a pub crawl around Newent would have offered the chance to drink from at least five breweries. Wickwar Ales at the Black Dog and Nags Head, Godsell’s at the Kings Arms, Worcester Ales at the Traveller’s Rest, Hatton’s Northgate Brewery Gloucester Ales at the Plough Inn and Tewkesbury Brewery Ales at the Bull Inn and Red Lion. Tewkesbury Brewery leased the Red Lion but owned the Bull Inn in 1891 when the fully licensed property had an annual rateable value of £20.0s.0d. The Newent pub crawl would not have been so good from 1896 when the Wickwar Brewery of Arnold, Perrett & Co. Ltd bought out the Tewkesbury Brewery. The annual rateable value of the Bull Inn had increased by £4 in 1903 to £24.0s.0d. suggesting that the Wickwar Brewery had improved their newly acquired property. The Bull Inn was licensed until 11 pm.
Rewind thirty or so years to Saturday 7th May 1870. It is hoped that Mr Mons Duvalli had not been tempted to have a pub crawl of Newent town pubs before he performed his spectacular gymnastic feats. A half-inch wire rope was extended at height from out of the Market Square to the top of the Bull Inn. Mons Duvalli, not contented with doing things conventionally, put a sack over his head and walked the tightrope … backwards. An impressive stunt, but the following Monday evening he went through the same performance with the addition of ‘wheeling a barrel up the rope, and sitting midway on it, drinking half a pint of beer, and charging, lighting, and smoking a pipe of tobacco. He gave great attraction and was well encouraged.’ (source: Gloucester Journal)
It is thought that the Bull had permanently closed by the outbreak of the First World War. The building is now the Bombay Kitchen.
Landlords at the Bull Inn include:
1822,1830 Lawrence Brown
1837 Thomas Cooley
1851,1856 W. Walduck
1876,1885 James Read
1891,1903 F. George Shipway (George Sheepway in 1902)
1906 Mrs Maria Howell
