The Bull & Stirrup Hotel is a magnificent building, but it is a pub we've never actually been in. I took this photo on our first ever canal visit to Chester on the afternoon of Saturday 31st August 1996.
On that visit we had two sessions in Chester and I took the photo in anticipation that we would find our way into the Bull & Stirrup at some stage. Sadly, we never did!
Although we've been back to Chester a couple more times in the intervening years we still didn't make it into the Bull & Stirrup. On our most recent visit, this is the vista that presented itself on the evening of Wednesday 10th August 2016.
So, it looked like we'd never get to sample the delights of the Bull & Stirrup after all.
However, my subsequent research has shown that it is due to reopen on 28th February 2017 having been bought by Wetherspoon's - link. So, we may still have the chance to get there one day!
Brings back memories of my youth. It used to be an outpost of Liverpool brewery Higson's, and had a wonderful unspoilt multi-roomed interior. It was later knocked through and when I last put my head through the door in 2014 only had keg beers :-(
ReplyDeleteIt used to have a tiled mural of "Edgar's Eight" (when eight subsidiary princes rowed King Edgar on the Dee in the 10th century) which hopefully has been preserved.
Thanks for that - you've made me even more disappointed to have missed out on what sounds like a gem. Hopefully, Wetherspoon's will do a tasteful job on the renovation - yhey're pretty good at that sort of thing these days!
DeleteI have had two separate weekends staying in the Bull and Stirrup in 1983 with mates and early 1984 with my girlfriend who became my wife.
ReplyDeleteIt was an Higsons tied house and i have had loads of pints of Higsons bitter in it.
A couple of things that have happened to me while staying in the pub,when with my mates we had a massive session round Chester and went back to the Bull and Stirrup and straight to bed in a shared room,back in those days there was one toilet for all of the rooms,i went to the toilet not too long after going to sleep a d when wandering back up the corridor a saw a couple walking towards me with and both had funny looks on their faces,i then realised that i was naked as i never sleep with anything on,i just walked past them back to our room.
When staying with my wife to be on our last day in the pub on a Sunday we were invited for a drink with the landlord which we did,we then went upstairs to pack our bags and one thing lead to another,when we finally came downstairs the pub was closed and the bar had a barrier round it,the front door was firmly locked so we had to go upstairs and go out of the fire escape with our bags,good times those were.
That's a fantastic tale (or two); it's amazing to think of how hotels used to be before en-suite facilities became the norm (not that many years ago, either!). Thanks for sharing your memories here.
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