A Seasonal Session.
- Stewart
- 12 minutes ago
- 6 min read
The winter solstice was approaching, meaning that it was time for one of the quarterly 'sightseeing trips' with former work colleague, Eric. Since the previous winter excursion to my hometown of Gorleston, we'd relived my undergraduate days in Bangor, endured the summer heat in Hull, visiting Eric's youthful haunts and had paid a return visit to Nottingham. This trip was to be to the Staffordshire market town of Leek.
After dumping our stuff at the hotel we made our way to the Fountain, situated on its eponymously named street, where we had our first pint.
Having put our coats on and said our goodbyes to the barman we immediately took our coats off again and settled down for another couple of halves to allow the downpour of biblical proportions to reduce in intensity to a mere monsoon.
Coats on once more and it was off to the Cattle Market. We'd passed this on the way to the Fountain and perhaps we should've passed it this time too, for its sole offering was Hobgoblin which, I have to say, tasted oddly sweet. The place's seasonal decs were of an order of magnitude or two different – you can decide if better or worse – from those of the Fountain.
Port of call number three was the Roebuck. The building dates from 1626 and is now one of Burslem's Titanic Brewery's outlets. Being lunchtime, it was pretty full with folks having an early Christmas menu, or whatever, but we simply stuck to a couple of halves – a Steerage from Titanic for me and something from Buxton Brewery for Eric.
A quick sprint across the road and we found ourselves in Joule's Brewery's Cock Inn where, after accepting the offer to sample some of their whisky porter we offered our excuses and opted for something lighter.
Then it was on to our final port of call, the Wilkes Head. During Christmases past I used to hunt out mountainous bits of Austria where I'd sup the local Weizenbier. The Wilkes Head had on offer Whim Ale's hand-pulled Weiss Bier, Snow White, so, with it being the season, I just had to indulge.
With my sole consumption of solids during this time having been a bag of Nobby's Nuts, it was time to eat something more substantial and so we made our way through the town's decorated streets...
...which had now ceased to be running with water, to the Chennai. It's the law!
More than gastrically-satisfied by my Paneer Chicken, we headed back to our accommodation for the night, Leek's Premier Inn on Ashbourne Road.
The Premier Inn wasn't always a Premier Inn. Unlike many of the company's establishments, this one has a past. In its previous incarnation it was the Talbot Inn. And prior to that it was apparently known as the Spread Eagle, although I've not been able to find any primary evidence for this. The earliest that I've been able to track it back to is a reference in Pigot's 1828 directory which lists John Hawkins as being at the Talbot in Derby Street.
That stretch of Derby Street, close to where the cattle market used to be, is now called Ashbourne Road, but it was also known as London Road for a while. Back in the nineteenth century, if you were to travel from Leek to London you'd pass through both Ashbourne and Derby en route. Nowadays you'd still visit Ashbourne but would give Derby as miss, thanks to the opening of the A50 in the mid-1980s.
Post-John Hawkins, the electoral register of 1835 tells us that Richard Ratcliffe was at an inn on Derby Street...
...which an entry in Pigot's directory of 1842 would tend to suggest was the Talbot.
Whilst informing us that Richard was no longer there in 1851, White's directory also gives us an inkling as to when the road's name was changed...
...with both facts being confirmed in that year's census. The census also lets us know that Mr Fernihough was a Thomas.
Harrod's directory has Thomas still at the Talbot a decade later...
...but he'd been replaced by John Weston by 1868. The pub was, apparently, now located on the Cattle Market.
The Weston family were still in residence by the time that the enumerator came a-calling three years later...
...and here's a photograph of the pub from around the time of their occupancy.
Now, the observant amongst you will likely have noticed that the building bears little resemblance to Eric's and my post-curry accommodation. That's because the original Talbot was almost totally demolished and replaced in 1878 by one built to a William Sugden design. Sugden had arrived in Leek as the architect for the Churnet Valley Railway, but soon set up his own practice and, together with his son Larner, was responsible for many of the town's major works of the period.
The new hotel's tower featured its name and date of construction on two panels...
...and with a new building it's hardly surprising that when the foot soldiers of Kelly's directory visited Leek in 1880 they found a new landlord in place.
Ten years on and John Benson could still be found at the Talbot...
...just as he was in 1900. But...
...he was also at the Sea Lion and the Unicorn at the same time. Both of these, by the way, are also now bygones too.
How did John Benson manage to be at three places at once? Perhaps, if we jump forward a decade or three, we might get a possible answer. Kelly's publication in 1932 has this entry:
Daniel Higson was a Liverpool brewer. I'm assuming that they owned the three pubs and that John Benson was effectively the brewery's representative in the town.
Communication with some locals produced tales of them drinking Higson's products in the Talbot, but Higson's was taken over by Boddington's in 1985 and Boddies became part of the Whitbread empire five years later. I'm assuming that Whitbread off-loaded the Talbot to Banks's. Whether it was sold or leased I'm not certain – for reasons we'll see in a minute I can't help but think it was the latter – but Banks's were certainly running it in 1991 when this happened.
After the fire it was repaired and continued to trade until 2005 before standing empty for a number of years.
In 2013 the building was acquired by Premier Inn who set about a sensitive programme of extension and renovation, under the guidance of Allison Pike Architects. Who owns Premier Inn? Whitbread!
So that's the end of the Talbot's story. After getting back to the hotel, Eric and I solved world hunger, stopped the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and then set about planning our spring sojourn. It won't be Leek, but I'm sure we'll return to Leek sometime in the future – and the former Talbot.
Gordon Griffiths' image is copyright and is reused under this licence.
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