Stood opposite side to George III on Wharf and Eldon Street.
Most of the info is as a beerhouse from the 1830s. The later directories list it as a shop.
1833, Richard Vesty of the Pavers was fined £2 for illegal opening hours. Vesty was one of 7 licensees deposed by Moses Pegg earlier that year that had previously had their case’s dismissed due to Peggs inaccurate evidence, it didn’t take long for informer Pegg o get his own back on Richard Vesty.
A later landlord was John Cooper, who came out of the army in 1806. He was taken to court on numerous occasions during the 1840s for refusing to maintain his wife. She had been forced to resort to Poor Relief. He claimed that when he came back from the army he found his wife had committed adultery with several men, so no longer considered her to be his wife. Cooper, living with his three children at the beerhouse, asserted that now he was a publican she had come back on him for support.
The magistrates concluded he was clearly exonerated in the eyes of the law from any liability to support her due to her lax morals.
A couple of further court cases involving John Cooper. In October 1841, he was charged with selling beer at improper hours, and in January 1843, charged with receiving 8oz of silver from a James Raven. Cooper claimed he took the silver in lieu of a dept for ale. Raven claimed an unlikely story that he found it in the street but as there was no proof Raven or Cooper had stolen the silver, the case was dismissed.
John Cooper was still at the beerhouse in 1846.
Little else yet known about the Malt Shovel, other than a reference to a Pavers Arms at the same address. It carried on as a grocer and beer retailer. In the1871 census, Elizabeth Spawton, aged twenty-six, was running it with Elizabeth Marshal, retired publican aged eighty-seven. Sarah Muggleton, another retired publican, was living there too.
Later directories up to 1883 gives Mary Ann Spawton as running a grocer’s from here. Elizabeth’s sister or mother both named Mary Ann.
1890s saw it become a fish and chip shop.
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