From ‘Tewkesbury Pubs’ by B.R. Linnell (1972, second edition 1996)
A deed of 1697 concerned with the building of Abbey Lawn refers to the house which stood on the site in the Crescent as the Bull Inn. For centuries before this time this was the main entrance to the monastery. As well as being a gatehouse it provided accommodation for travellers and visitors to the abbey. To mark the fact that it was under the control of the church the exterior wall bore a large Papal seal cast in the plaster, a “Bulla”, hence the later name of “The Bull” for the inn after the monastery closed and the building was put to commercial use. William Bisse may have been the typler or landlord here in 1608.
Bull Inn (2)
The name Bull Passage for the wide alley to the right of this house remained in use well into the 20th century which is odd, as there is no late knowledge of a Bull Inn here. It is not mentioned in the general licensing of all inns and beerhouses in 1869. Until about 1914 the property was divided into two shops, variously a fishmonger, a greengrocer and a tobacconist. At that time it was incorporated into the Hop Pole Hotel. Some two hundred years earlier it had been the Ram Inn.
