JOSEPH – OLD JOSEPH – NOTTINGHAM ARMS, ROYAL OAK, Belgrave Gate

Photo above of the Royal Oak: The adjoining building, an ex mortuary, became part of the Pub.

Joseph

First referred to in 1580 as an Elizabethan Inn (3). Recorded again in the recognisance orders of 1726 onwards.

1792 receipts book records 12/- rental “’or a house in Belgrave Gate known by the sign of the Joseph, in the occupation of John Highton in fee farm per annum.’

Old Joseph – Nottingham Arms

By 1813, the same receipt book- still a rental of 12/- – states: ‘A house in Belgrave Gate late known by the sign of the Joseph but now of the Nottingham Arms late in the occupation of John Highton and now of Benjamin Johnson’s widow in fee farm per annum.’  Although now the Nottingham Arms the pub was still sometimes recorded as the Old Joseph up to 1820.

A ‘sport’ held at the Old Joseph was one of badger baiting. A box containing a badger would be brought forth to an assembly of dogs and their owners. Onlookers were charged sixpence, a door on the box would be open and one by one the dogs would be let in to attack the poor creature, some dogs wouldn’t dare enter, the badgers claws could cut the dogs badly, when it was thought a dog had a good hold on the badger, the dog’s owner would pull the dog out by its tail, if the badger was still attached, the dog was deemed a first class baiter. Shrove Tuesday seemed to be held as the main date.

I write this in 2016, unfortunately, his barbaric act although highly illegal still prevails in some parts. I remember well in the 1960s, when I was a teenager, two men from my district in Oadby, Leicester who indulged. They thought it highly amusing when one of their dogs lost an ear in a badger bait.  Luckily now I have these beautiful creatures visit my garden at night – Barry Lount.

Royal Oak

Landlord Jim Flynn, behind the bar, 1998.

Barry Lount, together with wife, Liz, and daughter, Charlotte in the back room of the Royal Oak.

Ive always known the Royal Oak as a Shipstones House, the Brewers History society lists Cock & Langmore Brewery as owners when it was the Nottingham Arms c1880, later All Saints Brewery. When it became Shipstones not sure.

Glad to see The Royal Oak surviving 2023 (photo Jeremy Corbett collection) one off my old haunts, even back to the 1960s when we knew it as ‘Finnegans’ where Mrs Finnegan would let us in the back room to play to some rock ‘n roll. One of the ‘Holy Trinity’ of pubs Braziers, Bowltunners and Royal Oak