Photo above, thought to be the Marquis of Lorne (Vanished Leicester, Dennis Calow)
Briefly served as beer house, George Cooper being the landlord in the1880s before switching to an off licence and was auctioned off on 26 November 1898.
The advertisement described the Marquis of Lorne as an off licence and grocer in the occupation of Charles Riley, late owner for past twenty years. As well as shop and private dwelling, the property also contained a gateway, good cellarage, corn loft, paved yard with opening ‘drop’ for barrels and stabling for 4 horses.
All four Argyll Street beer houses survived little beyond the building of the Great Northern Railway.
Railway workers, mainly navvies, numbering in to their thousands, could descend on to an area at one time. The need for nearby alehouses was obvious. Usually paid once a month, often in the beer house, the navvies would then go on a drinking spree lasting days or until the money ran dry. Often in areas of large construction such as the railways, many beer houses would spring up; only to last until work was finished. So for the nearby beer and lodging houses trade was brisk. The lodging house a short distance away on the corner of Belgrave Rd and Britannia St advertised a ‘night’s lodging 2pence on the floor or a penny on the rope’, which meant the worker standing, hanging over a rope slung from one side of the room to the other.