When the name of the Shakespeare Inn was changed in 2007 to the Shamrock I wonder if the pub owners had any idea that a pub of that name existed in the same area about one hundred years previously? It was probably co-incidence rather than based on historical research. The present day Shamrock is on the corner of Grove Street. The original Shamrock Inn was probably just a stones throw away. It is likely that the Shamrock Inn was a haunt of the Irish Navvies working on the construction of the Great Western Railway ‘Honeybourne Line’ nearby which opened in 1906. The license of the Shamrock Inn was not renewed in 1918.
Cheltenham Original Brewery were the owners of the Shamrock Inn in 1891 and 1903. It was licensed as a beer house. The annual rateable value in 1891 was set at £15.5s.0d. increasing by one pound and fifteen shillings to £17.0s.0d. in 1903.
Hi Geoff,
The Shamrock Inn, which Martin Edwards posted a photograph of on the Facebook group Days gone by in Cheltenham, was at no. 19 Grove Street (now St. George’s House) – on the west side not far from the New Street end. I got the exact location from the 1855-7 Old Town Survey map using a modern slideable map overlay. On the Old Town Survey it is marked as the Shamrock, Rose & Thistle, which gives a more cosmopolitan feel as these are the emblems of Ireland, England and Scotland (no Dragon or Leek for Wales though!). Two of the early landlords were Irishmen – John Nugent and John Mullins – and Grove Street itself (one of Cheltenham’s oldest side streets, formerly known as Day Lane, in which the gate to the old Quaker’s Cemetery dated at 1700 can still be seen. The Shamrock, Rose & Thistle Inn was just north of and across the road from the Burial Ground).
On Facebook, Martin describes the Shamrock Inn beer house as “the roughest and toughest in Cheltenham” adding “this notorious side street had many low boarding house’s [sic] that had numerous families living in them…this street was a feared visiting place for the police at the time.”
In the 1881 census 19 Grove Street was identified as “a lodging house and pub run by John Howard” according to the Cheltonia website, ad it adds, “the house itself survived well into the 1980s under the name ‘Shamrock House’, but closed” and was partially demolished, before being fully replaced by St. George’s House which stands on the site now.
Perhaps the name changed as more and more Irish workers came to the town and settled in the street / frequented the pub
Cheers,
Alan Jones
Landlords at the Shamrock Inn include:
1864 James Mullins (‘Rose, Shamrock & Thistle’)
1891 Thomas Richings
1903 Thomas Flynn