Broad Street led from the heart of the town to one of its gates, so it was the natural place for inns. Travellers arrived through St John’s Gate, and merchants and lawyers did their business in and around the street.
From Oxenford’s Inn to the Grand Hotel
In 1295 a tenement on the east side of the street was known as Oxenford’s Inn. By 1517 the southern part of that property was the “Whyt Lyon”, the White Lion, and it became one of Bristol’s most prestigious inns. The Duke of Brunswick stayed there in 1610 and the Earl of Essex in 1621. With its neighbour the White Hart it was admitted to the city’s new Guild of Innholders in 1606.
The White Lion was the meeting place of Bristol’s Tories. In July 1685 it was attacked by arsonists while the Duke of Beaufort was staying there during the Monmouth Rebellion. In the eighteenth century it housed the American Coffee House, renamed the British Coffee House in 1785 after the American War of Independence, and its Tory club made it a target in violent election battles. Sir Robert Peel stayed there in 1840.
In the 1860s the White Lion, the White Hart and the smaller Plume of Feathers were bought by the Bristol City Hotel Company and pulled down. The new hotel, by Foster and Wood, opened in January 1869 and was renamed the Grand Hotel in 1874. It is still there.
Saracen’s Head, Ragged Staff and Virgin Tavern
Next door to No. 51 in 1522 was Walter Strange’s tenement called the Saracen’s Head, and behind No. 51 was Browns Taverne. Further along, No. 17 was known as the Ragged Staff as early as 1408. Another property was divided into several tenements “commonly called the Virgin Tavern”, which seems to have given its name to Maiden Tavern Lane.
The Cyder House and the Brandy Cask
Behind No. 51 the Innholders’ Hall and the Cyder House stood in the passage that still bears the Cyder House’s name, and at the front the Brandy Cask served the Old City until it was rebuilt in 1867. Licensees of the Cider House Tavern are recorded from 1752 to 1863.
Still pouring
The tradition continues. Nos. 49 and 50, a Grade II listed building from around 1770 with a ground floor thought to have been designed by Foster and Wood around 1854, is now a pub.