Photo above: Looking down Allington St from Cranbourne Street, circa 1969. Opposite the Great Northern (Bass House), stands the old Cranbourne Arms (white building boarded up). Denis Callow collection
On the north east side corner with Allington Street, compulsory purchased in 1968 during redevelopment of an area that backed on to the Great Northern Railway Station.
One of three Great Northern pubs in Leicester, sometime known as the ‘Little’ Northern.
Originally a home brew pub, together with its brew house the Great Northern was auctioned off on the 11th of October 1888. It was then supplied by Brunt & Bucknall Brewers of Woodville Derby, followed by Thomas Salt, and finally Bass until its closure.
In 1879, the landlord was in court for assaulting his wife and in 1893 the licensee Charles Woodford was fined for being drunk on his own premises.
A strange report was forwarded to the magistrates when on the 6th of December 1914, Inspector North documented that the Great Northern was a women’s house, being frequented mainly females who outnumbered men by four to one. A seemingly rarity, the significance has yet to come to light.
The pub underwent alterations in 1936.
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