Canterbury Arms
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Canterbury arms is a large public house in Ashton Under Lyne, Lancashire, England. It was built in 1893 by Henry Shaw Taverns.
The Canterbury Arms was licensed for beer and wine only, until 1925. John Smith's Brewery took over in 1939 while Arthur Mort was Licensee and was a Courage House until Barline took over in 1994 when Keith and Jill Mellor had it. Devonshire Inns had it in 1996 and it was closed for three months to be refurbished then bought by Pubmaster in 1998 while Johnny and Janet Nash were Licensees. After the Nashes left, temporary managers were put in by GRS Inns Holdings as well as permanent tenants through Pubmaster. None of them stayed more than twelve months.
The current brewery that supplies the pub is Carlsberg Tetley's. In December 2003, Punch Taverns bought it from Pubmaster and the current tenants are Nathan Head and Ian Wharmby. It is a large pub that originally had the living quarters downstairs where the lounge now is and upstairs was just a kitchen, small bar and large function room.
The cellar is just as big, with two storage rooms that look to be old cask cellars, there is a main barrel storage room, a pump room where the inline coolers and post mix systems are, a boiler room, the cellar drop room, a main room where crates are kept and the booky room. It is thought that the boiler room was once a larder or food preparation area before the modern heating system was installed.
Before the pub was built, there was a mill that occupied the land, Hurst Mount Mill. Not much is known about this building except a few stories from newspapers about a feud over water supplies with a local farmer.
It is known that the pub is the oldest building on the street and each block of terraced houses was each built at a completely different time over the past 100 years. This shows in the brickwork, also most buildings have a plaque with the date on too. It is unsure as to whether or not previous houses were on the street before these were built. A cobblers shop was once on the land that is at the side of the pub where the path to the beergarden is.
[edit] Trivia
- The Canterbury Arms was selected from Punch Taverns, restaurants and alehouses in the whole of the Northwest, out of Manchester, greater Manchester, Cumbria, Yorkshire, Leeds, Merseyside, Cheshire and Lancashire, for its impressive business development over a two year period and nominated for the Shine Awards in 2005.
- The Canterbury Arms was a Regional Finalist in the Punch Shine Awards 2005.
- In 2006, for the local borough of Tameside, the Canterbury was runner up for the title of “Pub of the Year 2006” in Tameside Food & Drink Festival.
- In May 2005, the Canterbury Arms was selected to represent the licensed trade at the House of Commons for the Publican’s “Proud of Pubs” campaign.
- In 2006, the Canterbury received two nominations at the Punch Shine Award for "Customer Relations" for their themed fancy dress parties.
- Since 2003, the Canterbury Arms has been host to Eurovision starlet and top 5 UK charter Nicki French, Irish singer Rebecca Stone and crooner Johnny Rich.
