Gem of a pub at the museum

Feb 22 2008 by Alastair Gilmour, The Journal

FASHIONABLE foodies beef over air miles, grouse around seasonality and belly-ache about best- befores.

Oh, for the old days, they’ll wail, when everything was produced locally and freshness was preserved.

The Newcastle Daily Journal of February 22, 1913, tells a different story, however. From the city’s markets 95 years ago, we were offered Canary tomatoes, Californian Newton Pippin apples, Seville oranges and Egyptian dates, plus radishes, asparagus and mint which are well out of season in frosty February.

Rhubarb was “still plentiful” and cost-carpers would be interested in cod and haddock at 6d a pound and oysters going for 2s-3s a dozen. Over the page, Elsie Southgate The Famous Violiniste and her sister Dorothy at the Mustel Organ were attractions at the Newcastle Hippodrome.

Reading the paper was homework for The Sun Inn, Beamish Museum, the post-Victorian attraction timewarped in 1913 at the peak of the North East’s industrial output and political influence. The pub, previously the Tiger Inn, was relocated brick-by-brick, spitoon-by-spitoon, from its original site in High Bondgate, Bishop Auckland. Then it was “a bit of a roughhouse” but these days, although it closes at 4pm in the winter and 5pm in the high season and has no regular customers – hardly the same face twice – it is an absolute joy, a haven, a gem and a regional treasure. That it serves three cask-conditioned beers during busy periods is not so much a bonus, it’s an afternoon delight.

Licensee Joanne Taylor, kitted out in an elegant, high-necked blouse, blends into a background of polished brasses, gleaming mirrors and Sunderland- ware pots. An extensive knowledge of the pub trade is supplemented by detailed social history to enable her to answer every question fired from curious visitors.

“Being near the Newton Cap coal mine, the pub would have been dominated by working men,” she says. “A Charles Leng owned it for 40 years and his family owned a timber yard; he was also a horse dealer and had a joinery business – the women in the family ran the pub. You actually learn quite a lot from the visitors, especially those from Bishop Auckland who remember it and you hear all sorts of tales.” Joanne’s dog dozes in front of the huge black range as its glowing coals tinkle soporifically. The high-backed, shaped benches look anything but luxurious but are extremely comfortable. Around the walls are beautiful original brewery mirrors and illuminaries of the day such as Neil Gow, Celebrated Scotch Musician. Framed Beamish AFC players look surprisingly modern; stags’ heads and stuffed birds have lost their sparkle, and a Manchester Unity Friendly Society calendar has stopped at 1908. A picture showing John C Heenan, The Benicia Boy from New York, squaring up to Tom Sawyers – Champion of England and 10-stone bricklayer who would fight anybody of any size – which hangs below a champion whippet in a glass case, reveal a predilection for gambling. Outside, a tram rumbles by with a cheery “ding-ding” which reminds Joanne that men in those days would race the vehicles to the sound of big wagers being struck.

“They travel at 12mph so they’d have taken some keeping up with,” she says. The tradition is revived every year with a full circuit. But, it’s still officially winter until March 15 when Beamish opens fully for the tourist season.

“I like the seasonality as much as anything and I’m really ready to get going again. We’ve got Bull Lane Mary Ale (4.4% alcohol by volume) on at the moment. We normally have three ales during the season, but we don’t have the throughput at the moment. We always have Theakstons Bitter as people come from all over the place and they’re comfortable with something they recognise. The other two are normally Bull Lane ones from Sunderland, it’s just a little taste of the North East.” (And just a little good business sense as the delightful Bull Lane beers are brewed by Joanne’s husband John.)

“Quite a lot come in and spend half-an-hour just looking round; we’re at a crossover between being an exhibit and a refreshment stop and a few get a surprise when you ask if you can get them anything. They think you’re just an exhibit not a real pub, but when it’s quiet you get a chance to talk to people about life in 1913. The sawdust in front of the bar gets quite a few questions going and one little boy thought it was for the pub’s hamster. They don’t like to hear it’s where men used to spit.

“Visitors often ask about women in bars. You wouldn’t have found unaccompanied women – if you did, she’d be a prostitute, a woman of ill-repute – and anyway, most wives wouldn’t have had the money to spend. The Family Department sign is a talking point, too; people assume it’s where families would sit but it’s where anyone from the family could buy off-sales to be served through the bottle-and-jug hatch. You could take beer away no matter how old you were, but it had to be in a sealed container if you were under 18. It’s typical to the North East. And, the Select Room had buttons on the wall for table service which you’d pay extra for.” We find out from the day’s paper that Worth’s Corsets were “Unsurpassed For Elegance”; Blayney’s Clan-na-Ghael, “the perfection of whiskies”, was 24/- a gallon, and a testimonial for Eade’s Pills – for gout or rheumatism – reads: “I could not walk about except in pain and was told to take your pills. When I had taken fifteen I Could Run Upstairs.”

We also learn that Newcastle United were away at Liverpool with Sunderland at home to Swindon in “the third round ties in the annual knockout tourney of the Football Association”. The day before, 53 ships arrived on the Tyne and 42 left, including the Lochside headed for Montrose, Scotland. The ship transported beer to thirsty Tyneside from the James Deuchar-owned Lochside Brewery. The canny Deuchar had also taken over the Allison Brothers’ Monkwearmouth Brewery in 1888 – which became one of the five originators of Newcastle Breweries. Lochside was sold to Macnab Distillers in 1957. So, it seems, like the poor, food miles will always be with us. Belly-ache, beef, gripe, bleat, grouse, carp, rhubarb.