Photo above: What was the Erskine Inn, 1972 (taken from Vanished Leicester DC).
It was numbered 66 then became 72 Erskine Street.
1864 advert in local paper stated ‘The newly erected Erskine in Erskine Street together with its brew house is to let.’
The Erskine Inn seemed to have had its problems as the above article from the Town Crier suggests on the 8th of November 1881.
In another case that year landlord William Smallwood was charged with allowing gaming on the premises.
In its short life the Erskine managed to have a dozen landlords.
The Leicester Fancy Rabbit Society met at the Erskine Inn to show their prize rabbits in 1867. The rabbits, placed on a table, were judged in various categories including length of ears. The winner had ears 21” long by 4 ½” wide. At the end of the show it was announced there would be a show of fat rabbits just before Christmas.
In March 1873, Timothy Thompson, aged 29, on coming in from the yard took the wrong door and fell down the cellar steps. The news report commented that ‘Thompson was found lying in a pool of blood, quite dead.’
After drinking in the pub, 15 year-old Henry Lewis stole 6d (2 ½ p), from the till. He admitted the theft but still was given a month in prison.
The pub was put up for sale on a few occasions in 1868, again in 1882 and 1883 when John Howe was victualler. It is possible that was when it was bought it became a builders merchant as by the mid 1880s it was listed as such.