The Fountain Inn or sometimes known as the Fountain Tavern stands on part of the site upon which the ancient inn, the Angel, stood.The earlier address given as Eastgates
A coach from the Fountain Cheapside to London ran 8-30 am daily (Advertised LJ 1820)
Originally called the Fountain, a premises thereabouts advertised in the Leicester Chronicle in October 1814 as a wholesale ‘Wine & Spirit Vaults’ run by Jackson, Bradley & York. The pub was possibly named after the water conduit nearby (ES), in 1827, (but that theory fails as it was called the Fountain previously) 1820’s ,Mr Palfreeman was victualler, his wife being recorded as having died at the Fountain 1827.
JR records two licensees being James Boswell, 1828 and Thomas Swain 1831 at the Fountain
By 1835, Julius Mott was licensee. (of what was recorded the ex Fountain Inn) he held a wholesale and retail-hence the Liquor Vaults,
Known as Julius Motts liquor Vaults
Feb 1836 this case from LJ
A directory of 1842 listed it as the Spirit Vaults, run by Mott & Co, a business that ran for one hundred years, Frederick Mott was licensee in the 1850s, although there are records of Robert Birkley Forrester, described as a ‘gentleman’ of Canterbury, owning the property , with Julius and Frederick Mott being the licensee’s. Still some newspaper reports still refer it to as the Fountain .
Later licensees under the Mott ownership included: 1908, Edward Kempton. 1913, Albert Shenton. 1917, Walter Lockwood. 1920, Tom Blyth. 1921, W. Pateman. 1925, James Clarke, and later in the same year, Albert Penney. 1930, Albert James and 1931, John Pawley.
Bought by M & B (Worthington) in 1934, being eventually run by Hartopps – who also ran the Albion in the same building fronting Gallowtree Gate (also known as Hartopps’ Dining Rooms). The precise moment the pub reverted to the Fountain is unclear, but presumably after Worthington’s purchased the property. It was sometimes referred to as Hartopps Fountain. It was known as the Fountain by the 1950s.
Its upstairs room was known locally as the Golden Staircase, due to the clientele.
The pub later became the Market Tavern, around 1970. Until circa 1973, it only had a six day licence.
Two views of the Market Tavern, right face on and left from the market place.
The Market Tavern was to last less than a decade. It closed its doors circa 1979 to become the Yorkshire Building Society.
