The Bulk of my Student Drinking.
- Stewart
- 40 minutes ago
- 7 min read
I have to admit it. I did sink a fair few pints in my student days. Whether it was in the Union on Garth Road – now a bygone, the Railway – another bygone, the Albion – still hanging in there when I returned to Bangor in March last year or in the Bulkeley Arms in the West End, quite a few were indeed imbibed. Whilst I certainly wasn't a one pub man, if I'd actually reached manhood by then, the bulk of my student pints were consumed in the Bulkeley.
I was first taken through the front door on Caernarfon Road, sometime in my first year as an undergrad, by Steve, a final year zoologist. On our way through town, he informed me that this was the best beer in town, and not to joke about it, as the landlord took his cellar craft very seriously. I have to say that I do recall that the beer was in excellent condition. Following that initiation, I'm ashamed to say that it took me another twelve months before I crossed the Bulkeley's threshold for a second time. By then Steve had moved on – last heard of living in Stirling, or somewhere up there – and had been replaced by John. John, like Steve, was a couple of years older than me. He'd just spent several months on an industrial placement somewhere or other before returning to Bangor to start work on his doctorate. I'd spoken to him a few times before but now, with all of his contemporaries having left he was having to lower his standards and strike up a proper friendship with me.
And so it was about now, half a century ago, in mid-February in 1976, that he and I entered the Bulkeley together for the first of hundreds of visits over the next three years. It was a proper pub. Just like the ones we frequented back in our respective home towns. The much lamented lost Highlands for me and the Bridge for him. It wasn't full of students, had cracking beer and, an absolute necessity, a dartboard. I recall getting my first ever one hundred and eighty in the Bulkeley. Saturday 6th March 1976. The dates of major life events like that just stick in the memory. The Bulkeley became our regular haunt. I recall lots of lock-ins and even the occasional Sunday night "private party". You have to remember that Bangor was 'dry' on Sundays back then.
The only Marston's pub in the city, the Burton Bitter was 17p a pint, rising to a heady 21p by the time that I graduated. Pedigree was a couple of pence more expensive, but I can't recall Pete ever pulling a pint. The loos out the back, the large poster of Muhammed Ali, the pretty reasonable jukebox belting out Fool to Cry by the Stones or The Whos' Squeezebox. I also recall Bonny Tyler's Lost in France along with Terry Jacks' Seasons in the Sun, which is why it was only pretty reasonable!
The Bulkeley had been serving pints, for about a century before I first met its acquaintance.
The earliest that I've definitely been able to trace it back to is 1880 when it is mentioned in the BMD section or, more accurately, the GPM one, of Y Llan on the 23rd April, where it announced the birth of a son to a James Mercer and his spouse.
The 1881 census, taken on 3rd April, tells us that the new arrival was also called James and that the Mercer family were still at the Bulkeley...
...but it looks like the licence was transferred to him on 5th April 1881according to the North Wales Chronicle of Saturday 9th April, reporting the court proceedings of the previous Tuesday. It does leave me wondering who the licensee was when James junior was born.
Whilst James junior's arrival provides me with my earliest named reference to the Bulkeley, the head count which took place a decade earlier does list a tavern in West End. The question is, was this the Bulkeley or the Marquis, also now a bygone boozer, a couple of doors away? So far I haven't been able to determine which pub Jane Parry was operating in 1871.
Anyway, back to the Mercers. James Mercer snr., and presumably James jnr. too, had vacated the premises by 1886 as this news report in the North Wales Chronicle of 11th December names the landlord of the Bulkeley Arms as Mr. J. B. Turner.
Turnover of landlords and landladies seems to have been pretty brisk as the licence was transferred from Mr. Turner to a Sarah Jane Roberts in spring 1887...
...and she didn't hold onto it for too long either. Having married in February 1888 – OK, I may be being rather presumptuous here, for there were quite a few John Joneses in Bangor, but things seem to fit – the licence was once again transferred, this time from Sarah Jane Jones to Maria Lawless, as noted in the Herald Cymraeg of 2nd October of that year.
Although Sarah Jane wasn't at the Bulkeley long, she was probably there where the Ordnance Survey visited and recorded the Bulkeley on their town plan.
Maria Lawless, a way away from her native Ireland, was still there for the 1891 census...
...but by the time that the representatives of Sadler's directory came a-calling in 1895, she had left and Catherine Littler was running the place.
Four years earlier she'd been living in Park Street with her carpenter husband Joseph. I presume that she moved in when he died, in 1893, in order to ensure she had income and a roof over her head.
With Catherine came a degree of stability, for she was still there when the enumerator called again in 1901...
...but died the following year, when daughter Annie took over the licence, as reported in the Liverpool Daily Post on 19th November.
By 1906, Annie had left and William Alcock was the Bulkeley's landlord. On 21st December he got a mention in the North Wales Weekly News. It was not the happiest of mentions.
It seems that James wasn't too happy about his premature departure from this world either, as he seems to have made a post-mortem appearance. The Paranormal Database contains this record which presumably is referring to him.
I have to say that I don't recall any ghostly goings-on in the place. The only strange event that I can recall is that I once won three games of darts on the trot.
By the time of the 1911 census another widow was in residence. After Maria Lawless, Catherine Littler (and possibly Jane Parry) we now have Elizabeth Godber. It seems like the Bulkeley was popular with widows.
Lizzie Godber, along with husband Moses, had been at the Garth Hotel in 1901 but had subsequently moved to take on the Castle Inn in Llysfaen (now yet another bygone boozer) where Moses died in January 1910. It looks as if she moved back to Bangor to run the Bulkeley with the help of her son, Ernest.
Lizzie resided at the Bulkeley until her own death in December1927 whereupon Ernest had the licence transferred to his name and continued with the tenancy. There were a number of issues with this, a pretty major one being that he did not inform the brewery.
The Holyhead Mail and Anglesey Herald ran this piece on 8th June 1928...
... and the Caernarvon & Denbigh Herald printed this a fortnight later.
It certainly seems, from looking at the above, that Marston's were successful in removing Ernest, allowing Maldwyn Jones to take over the licence for the pub in June 1928. Half a century later John and I enjoyed Marston's hospitality there and the pub continued to serve the folk of the West End until around 2011, about thirty years after my last visit. Upon closure, a planning application was made to convert the building into a single dwelling house but this was withdrawn and one for conversion to a house of multiple occupation (HMO) submitted in its place. This was initially rejected and quite how the building was finally converted, I don't know. But house, flats or HMO the Bulkeley is certainly no longer serving Burton Bitter.
So that's what's happened to the Bulkeley, but what about John? We performed Best Man duties for each other at our respective weddings and a generation on his elder daughter ended up going to Bangor to study. John and I met up at a Wetherspoon's in the Midlands a year or so ago to relive glory days and compare our lists of prosthetics. We must do it again some time, but it might be a while as I believe it's my round. We can't afford to leave it too long though. After all, the days of being quinquagenarians seem far away now, let alone those when we were students.
The Ordnance Survey map extract is copyright and has been reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland under the terms of this CC BY licence.
The newspaper images are courtesy of the British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk).
If you've read this far, then thank you. Possibly, like me, you may have some sort of interest in bygone boozers. Clicking here will take you to a searchable/sortable index which you can use to see if I've already featured any lost locals from your locality. You can also subscribe to ensure that you don't miss any future posts. Simply click here to return to the home page (opens in a new tab), follow the 'Subscribe' link and complete the form to receive an email notification of any future post. Or you could simply follow the link at the top of this page.
©2026 www.bygoneboozers.co.uk
Comments