HORSEBREAKERS ARMS, REPOSITORY HOTEL – 45 BELGRAVE GATE

Photo above: Showing the Horse Repository Hotel and entrance to Repository itself, which backed on to Charles Street

One of my first jobs on leaving school was at Pollards Brewery and Bottlers in Abbey St, as a drayman’s mate.  It was here that I developed a fascination for Leicester pubs and Inns. The Repository Hotel was also one of the first and remained one of the most delightful pubs to visit. Together with driver, Sid Savage, we would visit between ten and fifteen pubs per day, (a drink or packet of fags at most drops).

The Horse Repository was always memorable, not for being the easiest of deliveries, as it entailed a walk through the hotel into a yard with an overhead gallery.  We would carry the crates up the stairs, along the gallery, where alcoholic drinks were served together with cakes and sandwiches. This to a fifteen year old in the late 1950s, was a new world. Along the gallery punters could watch the sales below. A great shame this unique establishment vanished in the redevelopment of the Haymarket.

The first recorded landlord in 1855, was William  Mortimer. Warner Sheppard and Wade were the auctioneers behind the project, and took on the license in 1875.  In 1876, Thomas Ward was granted a full six day license. The Ward family held the license for the next 22 years.

1898, John Bedson. 1902, William  Hewitt. John Bedson again in 1911, 1917. Albert Roberts, 1932. John Bamkin, 1933. Shirley Cawthorne, 194. Sidney Miller, 1948. George Evans and 1949 – George Walker.

All types of horses and hounds went under the hammer at the Repository, including carriage horses with their tack. Many hunters were sold here. The site was altered in 1930 when Charles Street was widened, resulting in the demolition of the old stables. The sales closed during the Second World War, to be used as a food depot, to reopen in 1946, and became one of the major horse sales in the country.

HORSE REPOSITORY HOTEL

Many famous people visited the sales, including royalty.  The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII, attended in 1929, when a dozen of his hunters went under the hammer.