| Until
the 1980’s, the Cock & Bottle’s internal plan consisted
of two small rooms with a horseshoe-shaped bar linking them. To the rear of the smaller room, which only extended as far as the present bar counter was part of the tenants accommodation, together with the ladies toilets, the gents toilets being to the side of the pub at the front. |
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Front
bar, c.1960 |
Rear
bar, c.1960 |
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Front
bar, early 1992 |
Rear
bar, early 1992 |
| In September 1992, Whitbread, who held the lease, replaced the tenant with a manager, Maurice Ainscough, and opened the customer area into one larger room. A trade kitchen was built into the old tenants accommodation and the gents toilets re-sited into the rear of the building. Their original site became what is now the “view-in” cellar, a novel idea which enables customers in the pub and passers-by on the street to witness how a working cellar is managed. | |
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Bar
area, September 1992 |
View-in
cellar |
It became one of the first “Hogshead” Ale Houses, a concept designed to tap the growing resurgence of cask ales at the time. Whitbread, for once, allowed the managers of the Hogsheads to use a nominated supplier to source a range of some two hundred cask ales from around the country. The present licensee, Erik Wilkinson, with his wife Lorraine, followed Mr. Ainscough as managers from 1994 until 1998, bringing to their thirsty customers over 500 different ales in that time before leaving to open a new Hogshead site in the centre of Glasgow. They returned in 2001 as the first new tenants after Whitbread sold all its pubs to an independent pub operator. Whilst they cannot offer such a great choice of ales as before, due to a very stringent tie with the owners, you can be assured of the very best quality of fayre. They believe, wholeheartedly, in the original alehouse tradition of :- “Good Ale, Good Food & Good Atmosphere”Thanks to Mr. R. Geoffrey Rowley for the older history. |
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