Photo above: The Junction rear, no 4 Bath Lane backs on to the river Soar approx (BM.188.47). The boat started to sink close to the wharf top left see details of the crime below.
The first records of the Junction Inn, related to an inquest on 12th, May 1860, when a drunken knitter, after leaving the pub was found drowned in the canal at the rear of the premises.
1862, JRs records gives John Pilgrim as licensee, followed by Elizabeth Mathers in 1867, James Gutteridge took over in 1869.
Another court case on 28th June 1873, saw Samuel Jarvis fined 21/- or one month imprisonment, for refusing to quit the Junction when asked.
In April 1874, an inquest was held on the deaths of two women, Mary Parker and Martha Fewkes. They were drinking in the Junction Inn, together with Harry Smart and another man, when the landlord William Greet offered to take them out in his boat.
The five of them took off with Greet rowing. Not far from Bath Lane the rudder came adrift, close to where the two women were sitting. They immediately became alarmed, and caught hold of Harry Smart, which caused the boat to tip, water flowed in, and soon they were all in the water. Regulars at the Junction on hearing of the accident rushed off to the spot, three of them jumped in the water to drag the ladies out, but it was too late for poor Martha and Mary they were both declared dead. William Greet meanwhile had saved himself by swimming ashore.
In evidence, Greet told that he inherited the boat, it was in the Soar behind the pub when he took over only six months since. He had any leakages previously plugged at the nearby boat yard.
The verdict was ‘two women lost their lives by sinking of a boat through leakage’.
The last listed licensees were Thomas Blowers in 1874, and Thomas Dilks, in 1876. The pub closed when the license was not renewed.