The Definitive Guide to the History of
Pubs and Beerhouses in Coventry

Drinking in an Old English Town

City Vaults, 9 Smithford Street

These premises have been known by different names during their history:	FROM	TO	NAME
			Beerhouse
			Board
	1866	1879	Wine and Spirit Vaults
	1879	1892	City Vaults
	1892	1893	City Wine and Spirit Vaults
	1894	1912	Clarence Hotel
The photograph above, taken by Joseph Wingrave in the 1860s, is exactly how the premises and its surroundings would have looked in its early days. Until 1865 this was a ladies and gents clothes shop, but on the 26th January 1866 Andrew Sumner, having only the day before mutually dissolved his partnership with his father, Charles, opened a Wholesale Wine and Spirit establishment at No. 9 Smithford Street, passing this business on to James Colley in 1870. From 1879 Thomas Ball began to advertise it as the CITY VAULTS, and for just 6 months from July 1892 until early 1993 Hugh Thomas Gregory advertised constantly in the Midland Daily Telegraph his CITY WINE AND SPIRIT VAULTS. When William Hadfield took the reins in September 1894 it became the CLARENCE HOTEL until closure in 1912.
LICENSEES: 1879 Thomas Ball 1881 Ebenezer Barfoot 1884 - 1885 Henry Wilford 1885 - 1887 Robert Neil 1887 Ellen Eliza Powell (Jan to Jul) 1887 Josiah Mills (Jul to Sep) 1887 - 1889 Thomas Ball 1889 Joseph Peabody (Jun to Aug) 1889 - 1892 George Herbert Bamford 1892 Hugh Thomas Gregory
Street plan of 1851