I've had an image floating around for a while and as the weather is becoming more favourable for venturing out I was intending waiting until things became a bit more depressing on the meteorological front once again before posting about it. Somehow it always seems better to have pedalled out to a bygone boozer, snapped it and pedalled home again and I've no great desire to go pedalling through the centre of Derby at the moment. I'd also have a problem trying to snap this bygone for it's totally gone, but with what is happening in the area at the moment it seems like a suitable time to post about it after all.
OK, so what and where was this pub? Immediately I got hold of this photo I knew where it was taken. There's a Macklin Street in London and possibly elsewhere too, but having one which joins a Colyear Street and it not being in Derby would seem to be highly improbable to me.
The Stork Inn used to stand on the corner of Colyear and Macklin Streets.
Here it is, marked on this old Ordnance Survey map of the city, although it was just a town in those days.
Probably dating from the early1850s, as neither Colyear nor Macklin Street appears in any directory prior to Freebody's 1852 publication, the earliest record of it that I've managed to dig up is from 1855 when John Bryan was at the Stork. In the 1852 Freebody's work he's shown as being around the corner in Colyear Street, running the lost Scarsdale Arms. He could very well have been the Stork's first landlord.
From at least 1871, for a minimum of seventy years, the Stork passed through the hands of a number of individuals, and three generations, of the same family.
In 1871 Henry Ellis was living in the Stork Inn at 24 Macklin Street. Further building resulted in properties in the street later being renumbered a couple of times.
Widowed, he's still there a decade later, kept company by his sister-in-law and her children, William and Lilly.
He's still there, now at number twenty-six, in 1891...
...but in 1898 Harry died and by 1901 Albert Wildgoose was mine host at the Stork. Hold on! I thought that I'd said up the page a bit that the pub was in the same family for three generations. Well, take a look at the Christian name of Albert's wife.
That's right! Albert had married Henry's niece Lily. Or was it Lilly? However it was spelt they were now running the pub. Ten years later they had moved to the Melbourne Arms, also now a bygone, and the Stork – now as number 54 – was back in charge of someone with the name Ellis. This Ellis was Lily's brother Harry who, in the intervening ten years, had married Alice Cornes who just happened to have been living in the pub at the time of the previous census when Lily and Albert were running it.
Harry continues as the proprietor at number 54 until the 1930s...
...but by 1939 George and Maude Ratcliffe were running the Stork.
Time for another 'Hold on!' What about the Ellises? Well, look back to the 1901 census and you'll find Maud, without an 'e'. Maude was Lily's daughter and Harry's niece. Harry was still very close at hand though, living next door at number 50 – for some reason it seems that Macklin Street didn't have a number 52 – selling groceries and tripe. In 1941 the Ratcliffes were still at the Stork but it looks like Harry's daughter Mary is running the shop next door. Perhaps Harry had come to the conclusion that it was time for retirement.
Today there is no trace of the Stork Inn, presumably lost in the redevelopment of the area which took place in the 1960s. The site stands empty and try as I might – well it is almost forty years since I left the area – I can't recall if anything was subsequently built there and then itself demolished. As for the opposite corner, it certainly was built on and I even had a pint or three in what was constructed there.
Opening in 1965 the Pennine Hotel was part of the Rank Organisation's complex which included a cinema and all the usual trappings of a development of this nature constructed at this time in history. Picture the Past has this image of it taken in around 1974.
The Pennine was the go-to venue in Derby for large events, hosting things from boxing matches to wedding receptions. Whilst not my usual type of haunt I visited the place once for a 'do' with work colleagues in the early 1980s. In 2004 it became the Heritage Hotel and shortly after it was rechristened once again to become the St. Peter's Quarter Hotel. It finally closed its doors in 2015 and was boarded-up for years.
Earlier this month demolition of the former Pennine began. The above view became...
...and this one...
...now looks like this.
As stated earlier, today no trace remains of the Stork Inn. Very soon the same state of affairs will hold true for the Pennine.
That's this post done and dusted. Hopefully the next will be the result of having been out for a pedal, weather permitting. I have a couple of prime candidates in mind.
Thanks to Graham Sellors for his pics of the demolition of the Pennine Hotel.
The map extract is copyright and is reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland under this licence.
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