Named after Admiral Rodney who defeated the French in 1782, but the Inn is much older than that. Possibly an Elizabethan inn that became known as Admiral Rodney sometime in the early 1800s. The meeting place for many organisations and lodges.
It was offered for sale at auction many times from 1840-50, finally being sold in 1850, and more or less immediately demolished in the town improvement scheme, The Blue Boar’ which stood nearby had just suffered the same fate. The Leicester Mercury reported that ‘progress continues in the improvement of Leicester with the pulling down of the Old Admiral Rodney to make way for a new one.’ It seems a chunk of Elizabethan Leicester went during this period: it wasn’t only the 1970s that destroyed much of historic Leicester.
Framework Knitters would meet here to discuss their grievances and to organise their plan of action during the 1840s. Conversely, many knitting machines were to be auctioned here shortly after.
In 1833, the landlord was fined £3 for allowing young men and women in his house for the purpose of ‘tippling.’
The ‘new’ Admiral Rodney, built 1850, which only lasted as a pub until the 8th of October 1909, when it finally closed. The demolition of this building took place in 2003 to make way for the Travel Lodge.
Shortly after the rebuild in 1854, whilst cleaning out the cesspool at the Admiral Rodney, the men found the body of an unknown female child sewn in a sack. A surgeon was called and found there were marks on the head and neck, but was unable to say if the child had been alive prior to its interment in the cesspit.
The body could have been there for weeks, rendering it impossible to know if she had died of natural causes.