The Hatters Arms (picture circa 1890), was a bakery ran by William Pears in 1865 who also had a beer licence. The beer house seems to have been called the Hatters from circa 1868, and one possible explanation for this was that the workers from the nearby hat factories frequented the pub.
1869, saw John L. Braden take over the bakery and beer house. It was during his tenure that this photograph was taken. John Braden also brewed his own beer. The Hatters was put up for sale ‘with or without bakehouse’ together with four adjoining cottages.
William McCann was licensee in1897, listed as a brewer too, according to the magistrates’ records. Marstons owned the Hatters around this time, Thomas Adnitt, 1900, and Harry Peake, 1903, followed. The Hatters was to close prior to World War One, when its license was refused. Compensation of £605 paid to the owner, by now John Taylor, maltster of Leicester, and the tenant received £160. The Hatters was sited in East Bond Street on the corner with Causeway Lane.
