Griffin, 122 Gosford Street
| These premises have been known by different names during their history: | FROM | TO | NAME |
| 1720 | ? | PARROT AND GRIFFIN | |
| 1772 | 1851 | GRIFFIN | |
| 1868 | c2003 | SIR COLIN CAMPBELL, CAMPBELL | |
| c2003 | 2011 | SCREAM, IT'S A SCREAM | |
| 2011 | present | PHOENIX | |
 The griffin is a fabulous monster, supposedly the offspring of the lion and the eagle. Since it represented the attributes of the noblest animal and the king of the birds, it was much used on coats of arms. Families called Griffith or Griffin have been especially fond of using it.
In a marriage settlement of June 1720 Joseph Ash, Coventry beer brewer, settles this pub on his son, Joseph Ash junior, and Bridgett Sturgess. The name was then the PARROT AND GRIFFIN. By 1773 when an auction was held on the premises, JCM 15/2/1773, it was referred to as the GRIFFIN. It is mentioned again as the GRIFFIN in a mortgage document dated 1789, and that name remained until 1868 when the name changed to the SIR COLIN CAMPBELL after the 1st Baron of Clyde (1792-1863).
In the 1980s it was a 'large popular Victorian pub recently modernised' and 'a popular pub particularly with the students from the nearby Polytechnic'.
In 1995 a cellar was found behind the Colin Campbell pub. This cellar was actually set back from the historic street frontage, apparently behind the building which people would see as they walked along the street. It was dated to 1380-1410, the heyday of such cellars in Coventry, but had been un-roofed and filled in during the nineteenth century. The location of these cellars, almost shoe-horned in, might suggest that as a staus symbol they were sought after, but that their construction might be too disruptive to dig under existing buildings. The cellar under the Sir Colin Campbell contained a west window. On that plot there was evidence of non-ferous metalworking, so a west window would allow work to go on indoors, even in bad weather, late into the afternoon, making use of the afternoon light. It would also ventilate the cellar if it was being used for work rather than storage. All of this appears to preclude its use as an alehouse at that date.
In the 1920s the pub was a main venue for jazz in the city and this continued to the 1970s. In the 1990s the name was shortened to the CAMPBELL and in 2011 became the PHOENIX. This was also known as SCREAM or IT'S A SCREAM for a while, after the Scream pub chain, part of the Stonegate Pub Company.
Note that William Bray was also a brewer, presumably on the premises. After 1850 this pub only appears on the ten-yearly census, not in any directories, as it had become the SIR COLIN CAMPBELL. | |||
LICENSEES:LICENSEES: (the GRIFFIN) 1841 Johnathan Bray 1845 - 1851 William Bray brewer & victualler 1861 George Robinson victualler & whitesmith LICENSEES: (the SIR COLIN CAMPBELL) 1868 William Graham 1871 Sarah Graham 1874 - 1879 Thomas Preedy 1881 - 1905 Edwin Wall 1909 Mrs H. Wall 1911 - 1929 Samuel Eggington 1931 - 1932 W. L. Eggington 1933 - 1936 J. E. Tyler 1937 - 1940 P. R. Suffolk 1982 Anthony Smith | |||
 Street plan of 1851 | |||