Photo above: circa 1950s. Stands nrxt door to Stag & Pheasant
John Gisbourne was the licensee of the Barrel circa 1827.
During the 1860s the Barrel ran ‘free and easies’under the licensee William Cooper. William also was to run the Gladstone Music Hall in Wharf Street.
James Cleaver was to take over the Barrel in 1876. He briefly called the beer house the Rhine Wine Vaults before settling on the Tower Vaults in 1877.
The pub closed in the destruction of Humberstone Gate, to make way for the new Haymarket development. If ever planners got something wrong, this project was it: a dozen pubs and fine hotels were to become victims of council vandalism.
