New Forum for Plymouth

Greenskin wrote:

knecht wrote:

Winter Green wrote:

The old' Porto I think, as in Oporto ? Stood all on it's own in a desert. Propped up by boards as is the Grand Theatre pub to this day.

That sounds like it. Even then, when I was young, I recognised it was a very old building. It was demolished long before I managed to get into pubs.

I wish I had taken my camera out & captured bits of old Plymouth that's no longer there or have changed completely. Like the old car sales room at the junction of Cobourg Street & North Hill. Or the indoor market next to where Burton's used to be. Or the Gaumont cinema that was where TJ Hughes was recently (my mum was proud of having seen The Glenn Miller Band there). Or the lay-out of Crownhill Road - Tavistock Road junction, complete with the Victorian barracks before the massive new road was built there.

If it's the pub you're talking about,it was called the Oporto.Before my time but it's featured in "Vanishing Plymouth" by someone called Brian Moseley,brilliant book published in 1982 [you can still get it on Amazon].It was at the top of York Street,apparently it was a Pops House pub,a local division of Popplestone and co.Must admit to having something of a fascination with old Plymouth-was York Street just about where the Copthorne is now?

This is Brian Moseley's website on Plymouth's history. http://www.plymouthdata.info/index.htm

THIS site has the Newtown Hotel on the corner of Cobourg & York Street. Maybe it changed its name? It is a Starkey's pub but don't know when the picture was taken - with all the tv aerials it looks like a later picture so maybe not the Oporto -especially as it has other buildings around it.

knecht wrote:

I've just been reading around Starkey's ales & found this wonderful story:
"A dead rat was found floating in a beer vat at Messrs. Starkey, Knight and Ford’s Tiverton brewery on Sunday morning… Yesterday, watched by Customs and Excise officials, 1,600 gallons of beer went down the drain.

Western Morning News, 1 June 1948."

What a waste of all that beer!

nothing has changed in Tiverton, the beer is still full of rats

knecht wrote:

THIS site has the Newtown Hotel on the corner of Cobourg & York Street. Maybe it changed its name? It is a Starkey's pub but don't know when the picture was taken - with all the tv aerials it looks like a later picture so maybe not the Oporto -especially as it has other buildings around it.

No, it was a better looking building than that, or maybe just the taller part, but would say not. I've now found this site

List of Old Plymouth pubs

Looks like there was an Oporto Wine stores at 40 York St. So would say that is it.
Might have been re named after a pub that seems to have been closed between the wars in Devonport. My father referred to the old building before it was pulled down a few times and said he'd had the odd pint or two in there whenever he was up visiting his Naval brother in Plymouth. He did mention why it was the only building left standing on the bomb site, but I can't remember the reason now.

Have just found some fantastic photos of old Plymouth and even kids fishing off Postbridge, many of which I have never seen

Old photos

Winter Green wrote:

knecht wrote:

THIS site has the Newtown Hotel on the corner of Cobourg & York Street. Maybe it changed its name? It is a Starkey's pub but don't know when the picture was taken - with all the tv aerials it looks like a later picture so maybe not the Oporto -especially as it has other buildings around it.

No, it was a better looking building than that, or maybe just the taller part, but would say not. .......

I think you're probably right. I just thought that it may have looked a bit different if it was left standing on its own. I would have been seeing it from the mid-50s up to maybe early '60s.

As for your other site, I've used that on & off for some time - it's a bit like trawling through a disorganised junk-shop and all the better for that with the pleasure of coming across a real find.

Winter Green wrote:

Have just found some fantastic photos of old Plymouth and even kids fishing off Postbridge, many of which I have never seen

Old photos

Brilliant indeed

Early shot of a fans fest before the tent went up and whilst waiting for Chas & Dave they happily munch on their pasties.

I've just seen a photo of two sisters standing a Plymouth park. Could be Devonport at a push, but really looks like Freedom Fields Park looking toward Lipson Rd with the first house of Queens Rd just showing at the top.
But here's the real rub..... there's sheep grazing in the park ! Great stuff, unbelievable how sensible they were in those days. Where did we lose it all ?
I was talking to Johnathan on Saturday, he who sees to the community cafe there and the annual festival. Must show him this one.

I think that's The Hoe. In front of Hoe Road.

That picture caught my eye also as it looks just like cousins of mine in a photo taken late 40s. (It's not but it looks like them.)

I think that is Freedom Fields looking up towards the hospital at the top of the picture. I saw the picture of the Unity and he said it was Park St. is that a different one to the pub that used to be in Eastlake St. where they built the hideous Mall?
As for the fans fest picture I wouldn't have said that was local, the Hazel looks brown not like our lovely golden rods we get round here.

knecht wrote:

I think that's The Hoe. In front of Hoe Road.

That picture caught my eye also as it looks just like cousins of mine in a photo taken late 40s. (It's not but it looks like them.)

I've just gone back to Steve Johnson's web-site & he says it was taken "on the town-ward slope of the Hoe".

knecht wrote:

Early shot of a fans fest before the tent went up and whilst waiting for Chas & Dave they happily munch on their pasties.

Knecht is that you in the middle with the cardie, newspaper and Belgian Bun?

The trees would certainly fit Knecht. Taken from the current putting green.  That would make the house just showing top left the Invicta Hotel. I'll take a photo tomorrow and check.

Chemical Ali wrote:

knecht wrote:

Early shot of a fans fest before the tent went up and whilst waiting for Chas & Dave they happily munch on their pasties.

Knecht is that you in the middle with the cardie, newspaper and Belgian Bun?

Mark Wingett Actor far right

Chemical Ali wrote:

knecht wrote:

Early shot of a fans fest before the tent went up and whilst waiting for Chas & Dave they happily munch on their pasties.

Knecht is that you in the middle with the cardie, newspaper and Belgian Bun?

that was his first day amongst the working class   

Chemical Ali wrote:

.....
Knecht is that you in the middle with the cardie, newspaper and Belgian Bun?

It is indeed, young man. As you are one of only a handful of people on here who have met me in real life, you clearly have an advantage on the others.

Beast_Guy wrote:

Chemical Ali wrote:

knecht wrote:

Early shot of a fans fest before the tent went up and whilst waiting for Chas & Dave they happily munch on their pasties.

Knecht is that you in the middle with the cardie, newspaper and Belgian Bun?

Mark Wingett Actor far right

Or 2nd left.  Or perhaps his twin?

knecht wrote:

knecht wrote:

I think that's The Hoe. In front of Hoe Road.

That picture caught my eye also as it looks just like cousins of mine in a photo taken late 40s. (It's not but it looks like them.)

I've just gone back to Steve Johnson's web-site & he says it was taken "on the town-ward slope of the Hoe".  

It's definately on the Hoe. There's a similar picture on Brian Mosley's site with sheep grazing on the Hoe.

knecht wrote:

Early shot of a fans fest before the tent went up and whilst waiting for Chas & Dave they happily munch on their pasties.

Looks like they are eating Wagon Wheels.

Ah, the good old days when Wagon wheels really were the size of....er....Wagon Wheels :/

FY 310 wrote:

Ah, the good old days when Wagon wheels really were the size of....er....Wagon Wheels :/

Bastard .... you beat me to it!   

How about gob-stoppers? Or has my gob just got bigger?

(PS sorry Leigh for diverting this thread from your inestimably excellent site).

knecht wrote:

Hi-jacking this forum on Leigh's new site ...... does anyone remember the pub at the junction of Coburg Street and Western Approach. It stood there pre-roundabout at the junction where there were traffic-lights. I think I remember it as a Starkey's pub - it certainly had that brewery's black horse sign. It clearly was an old building.

What was it called.

It could well be the Oporto, I'm quite sure there was one on the other side of the road too(name unknown) and there was the Harvest Home but I believe that was situated at other end of Cobourg St around the area of today's Drake's Circus shopping mall. Some old photographs of Plymouth City Centre would help to clear this up, between the end of WW2 up until 1960ish if anybody knows of or has a link to such a website. I was told years ago that Plymouth had more drinking establishments of one kind or another than anywhere else in the country other than London up until the 1970s when the Navy went into decline, whether this is true or not I couldn't say but it wouldn't surprise me, In my younger days it seemed like there was a pub on every corner!! 

Just found this from 1940 showing the school on the right and looking down towards what is now North Cross roundabout but doesn't quite show what we're looking for.

The Harvest Home was roughly in the centre of Drakes Circus roundabout according to this site.

http://www.closedpubs.co.uk/devon/plymouth_harvesthome.html

I thought it was a little bit further west than that - where the Jigsaw Garden is but what do I know. One of my memories of it is that as a kid I used to get frightened having to walk on the metal grills in the pavement that were along the wall.

Asti, your picture link doesn't show.

Obviously my computer skills don't stretch that far, sorry knecht.