Ten name changes (and counting), this establishment was originally known as the Commercial Hotel in the 1870s. Wm James Nicholas applied for a spirit licence to go with his beer licence in 1874, he presented his case to the magistrates by informing them it had 16 beds, and other rooms, a coffee room, he had kept the house for 5 years now, being near the Railway Station, it was frequented by the gentry including Mr Lambert the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Nicholas’s application was granted.
So the implication of the application was that the Commercial was pre 1870’s
Changed to the Victoria and remained so well into the 1960s, when it then embarked upon fashionable name changes to suit the times.
This was a Worthington House owned by Hartopps, with its quaint bars and one of the early jazz venues.
During World War II, the Victoria was requisitioned by the government, presumably as its location was close to the railway station.
A letter from owners, Hartopps, to the Leicester Police informing them of this is shown below:
The Victoria obviously reopened later during or just after the war.
Tut ‘N’ Shive, April 1993. It closed the following year to reopen under Mansfield Brewery and another new name, this time the Wyvern.
The Wyvern, with the old railway livery.
There was also a hotel of the same name next to the station in Victorian times, but it was a temperance hotel.
The Wyvern was to last a full decade. In 2006, it was renamed again- to the Fox and Tiger, a sports bar after Leicester’s football and rugby teams. Alas, this lasted less than two years before the owners opted for yet another name change – the Road.
The Road in January 2007, boarded up by 2010 to become a Sainsbury’s supermarket.