Photo above: Classic picture of the Crown and Dolphin at no. 1 Holy Bones, actually stood on the junction of Jewry Wall Street, Blue Boar Lane and Holy Bones.
An old man named Mason, from Enderby, entered the Crown & Dolphin late one Saturday evening in December 1834, pleading for a room for the night. He was crying and distressed, so the landlord took pity and offered Mason a room, refusing him a drink of ale due to his inebriated state. Mason nonetheless somehow managed to procure a pint from someone in the pub, and as the night turned into Sunday morning Mason started to sing a hymn. Mr Neale, the landlord, asked him to be quiet as singing wasn’t allowed on Sunday and people may think he ran a disorderly house. Mason wasn’t having this so continued to sing his hymn and Mr Neale promptly threw him out into the street, where a passing policeman saw the altercation and charged Neale with assault.
At court, Mason admitted he was in a ‘beerified’ state, having been drinking in the Angel and Hat & Beaver before entering the Crown & Dolphin, telling the court to much amusement that it was a shame to spend the Sabbath without a hymn, so he sang a psalm hoping all around would join in. The landlord – ‘a profound sinner’ – disliked this mode of spending Sunday morning and promptly kicked him out. Mason couldn’t remember how much drink he had consumed, but it was always his rule to sing a psalm before bedtime. Landlord Neale counter accused the constable of wrongful arrest.
The court agreed that Neale shouldn’t have been charged but the constable acted within his rights as he saw the situation. As for the old man, Mason, they decided after much laughter that the three men should leave the court to sort out things out between them, as no one was guilty of anything!
Crown & Dolphin from Blue Boar Lane, St Nicolas in background, picture would during James Allsop’s time 1902-1918 . (His name clearly visible on the gable end.)
The ‘established 1874’ painted on the brickwork can’t refer to the building as we know it as much older. In fact a date of ‘1715’, was inserted in the brickwork.
Another Court case involved a lodger at the Crown & Dolphin in 1835, when Edward Wooley, alias Smith, was charged with robbery of goods and was sentenced to seven years transportation.
Elizabeth Reddell, who was landlady during the 1880s, was once fined 10/- for taking a soldiers’ overcoat in pawn, in breach of the 1856 Army Act.
Around this time Everards bought the pub, only to demolish it, circa 1921, with the new modern Victory, named after victory in the World War I, built in its place.
The Victory in the 1960’s one of the few bars in Leicester that had a ‘gay’ presence.
Tragically this classy inn was only to last around 50 years, as it was deemed in the way of the newly planned Vaughn Way underpass, so was duly demolished during the 1970s.
Seems to be a mixture of establishments in the article. One in Holy Bones and the second at the junction of Great Central and All Saints. The establishment at Holy Bones is still there but no longer a pub. The latter, on Great Central is the Everards pub that was demolished