Photo above: Taken circa 1927 shortly after the ‘new façade’ was added. St Marks church in the background.
The Waterworks Tavern was recorded in 1854 directory. It was auctioned off at the Anchor in Charles Street that year on the 12th of March.
Known for a period as the Foundry Arms after the foundry that was built here in 1799 by James Cort, a similar name to the beer house a few doors away in Belgrave Gate. This was short lived as it became known as the Cardigan Arms, the Lord Cardigan and eventually Earl of Cardigan. who led the ill fated Charge of the Light Brigade
An LBM House from 1899, prior to that it had its own brewhouse. LBM leased the pub until 1917 when they finally agreed to buy it for £3000.
Inquests were often held here during the 1870s.
Next door Central Motors’ cars displayed in front of the Earl of Cardigan.
The pub was to close on the 8th of August 1941, but had been used for a short time by the local ‘Blackshirts’, much ‘nazi’ party propaganda found here.
Charlie Wright reopened the building as the Cardigan Café on condition that any forces in transit at the nearby station were to be fed and bed for the night. It next embarked on its most notorious time when known as the Blinking Owl café, being known as a haunt of prostitutes and illegal gambling, finally being raided in 1957.
The Blinking Owl, circa 1956: the respectable facade belies what lay behind.