Photo credit Chris Pyrah
1750’s kept by George Croxton, 1758 Samuel Tupman a sergeant in Colonel Boscawens Regiment of Foot stated to have drunk three pints of ale and using ill language struck Croxton of the Fish & Quart.
This Georgian building was in the news in 1759 when the landlord George Croxton was summoned for swearing and striking a customer ‘a violent blow on the head.’ The customer claimed ‘after I had had three mugs of ale I asked the landlord how he was, he took offence and struck me.’
Jan 1815 The Fish & Quart up for sale.
1836 saw a case of assault by John Mee a hawker who the bench described as a ‘victim of strong beer and weak women’ Mee had been in the Fish & Quart with a fellow hawker, where they got drunk on the premises they sallied out to a still worse place of resort than a public house, Beckoned by Ann Burney ‘ a frail fair one’ they entered a house (brothel) in Cannon Yard, where a row was in a few minutes kicked up ending in a scuffle, the outcome was Mee was found guilty of assault on Ann Burney, fined 5/-or 7 days imprisonment in default,(LC)
The Fish and Quart once had enormous stables stretching to the back of Belgrave Gate. They were to accommodate the animals that performed at the Palace Music Hall in Belgrave Gate whose stage doors were in Mansfield Street, backing on to the Fish and Quart. The stables were even reported to house elephants.
Marstons bought the pub in 1900, one of only a few that they owned in Leicester. The inn was altered in 1933 and again in 1944.
In the 1950s, the Fish & Quart was one of the first pubs to have a large television screen. The idea was two-fold: one, to provide programmes for those who hadn’t a television at home and two, for those who had and were tempted to stay at home to watch their favourite programme instead of going out.
The Fish and Quart was again a forerunner in pub fashion when it became one of the first eating out pubs under the Berni Inn banner. The main choice was a prawn cocktail starter, steak and chips for main followed by black forest gateaux, together with a few pints of Pedigree – ‘a real treat’.
The pub closed in the 1980s and became the After Dark night spot ,followed by Gatsby’s and Brannigan’s after the building was gutted by a fire in December 1990.
Brannigan’s
By 2005, it had reappeared as After Dark again, but by 2009 was known as Emperie Night Club.
Epsilon nightclub c2011-2016 eventually became Emperor Shisha Lounge c2019, fell foul of LCC on breaking smoking laws 2023 opened as Doen Hooka and Shisha Lounge
It does seem a fashionable trend since c 2000 to use closed or disused pubs in Leicester as Shisha bars or lounges, mainly popular and ran with and by the Asian community. Some are still licensed but we do not list them as public houses but show how the changes have affected our pub history.
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