By the early nineteenth century the front of No. 51 was in the drink trade too. Thomas Murch, a spirit merchant, was trading at 51 Broad Street from at least 1826. When he died his widow, Hester, carried the business on, and in the 1841 census she is listed as the publican of the Brandy Cask, next door to the White Swan Tavern.
The Brandy Cask was a city-centre house that served the lawyers, merchants and clerks of the Old City. Its regulars included the barristers attending the Bristol Sessions, the city’s criminal court, and in 1866 they presented the barmaid, Anne Cratchley, with a massive silver goblet. The same year brought sadness: the landlord’s wife died at the Brandy Cask on 7 January 1866, aged just 26.
Its owners always claimed a long history for it. At a licensing hearing in 1884 the landlord’s solicitor told the magistrates that the Brandy Cask had existed for more than two hundred years. Given the Innholders’ Hall and the Cyder House behind it, and Browns Taverne before that, he may not have been exaggerating by much.
In 1867 the old building was pulled down, and something much grander went up in its place.
A name that moved
There was another Brandy Cask in Bristol, a hotel on the quayside. The Co-operative Wholesale Society built on its site in 1903, and Broad Quay House stands there now. The two are easily confused in old directories, so the address is always worth checking.