The Ram was a very old inn with the first record dating from 1726, in the recognizance orders address given near the West Bridge.
Mr Peach was victualler in 1818, his wife, Eliz, dying at the inn, aged fifty-four in 1827. Mr & Mrs Hitchcock followed until 1848, when Marry Hitchcock moved to the White Lion in the Market Place. Perhaps Mr Hitchcock had died.
Charles Crofts moved from the Shakespeare’s Head the following year. A substantial size, the Ram had a coach house, stabling for twenty horses, eight bedrooms and four drinking areas. It was also the centre for many auctions, A couple of interesting reports read thus:
(November 1836). ‘Now exhibiting at the Ram Inn, St Nicholas St, the celebrated short horned heifer calved in 1831. A beautiful pedigree beast.’
(June 1840). ‘Eight Gentlemen from the Trinity Hospital, with an age totalling 618 years sat down for dinner at the Ram. After taking their ‘wack’ adjourned to the skittle alley where the oldest in his 90th year got a double strike.’
After Charles Crofts in the 1850s, Thomas Wheatley transferred the licence to George Harry Stonehill, who came from the Cherry Tree Bond to run the Ram in 1867.
In March 1872, G. H. Stonehill moved to the Admiral Rodney, as the Ram was advertised in the press as shortly to be demolished with the contents to be auctioned. It is unclear if this happened at this time but there are no more known references to the Ram after that date. It is not on the 1880 map – only the Recruiting Sergeant which stood the opposite end, so it appears to have been demolished or just de-licensed.
If the Ram was no.1 St Nicholas St, it would corner marked 213.0 (Roman coins have been found there). The 1849 Directory described the Ram as North side Highcross Street to Green Coat school (Alderman Newtons). This was on the corner of Holy Bones, which is St Nicolas Street – so the No 1 is more than likely correct.
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