Rose and Crown, High Street
| These premises have been known by different names during their history: | FROM | TO | NAME |
| 1624 | 1992 | ROSE AND CROWN | |
| 1992 | ? | COURTYARD | |
This pub is Grade II Listed, being c1800 stucco, set back from the street in its yard and one of the few early inns surviving in central Coventry. The first mention I have found was in in 1624 when certain houses are said to stand near the Rose and Crown gateway. This gateway must have been quite substantial as in 1853 there was a lease of a ware-room above it. At this date, the seventeenth century that is, the pub appears to have been known as the CROWN.
In 1692 Thomas King bought the Rose and Crown and then in the eighteenth century it was owned by a changing partnership of up to six people. The pub appears on Bradford's Coventry Survey of 1748-49 so it was a substantial building. After the Coventry Races in 1755 ordinaries, set meals at a fixed price were sold here.
In 1756 fourteen soldiers were billeted here, confirming it as one of the largest inns in Coventry. It is said that the accommodation at the Rose and Crown was used by carriers. Being such large premises, they were used for public entertainment. In 1785, 'a large commodious room accommodated the Amazing Pig of Knowledge, which could count and tell either the time or "any lady's or gentlemen's thoughts".
During the Great Fair (the Corpus Christi or Show Fair lasted eight days) of 1795, the Sadlers Wells Company came with a troupe of Italian acrobats and performed the Harlequin Skeleton in the Assembly Rooms and at the Rose and Crown whilst the acrobats entertained in the yard.
in 1762 the Rose and Crown was the meeting place of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Warwickshire (Freemasons).
For two years a boys school was held in a large room in the Rose and Crown. This was because St. Michael's parish school in Union Street had closed in 1853 and the new school was not opened until 1855.
In 1935 it was said to have 'spacious and comfortable lounge. Flowers and Sons ales, finest wines and spirits'. In 1961 Jimmy Taylor wrote at some length about the delights of the Rose and Crown.
I can't help but feel that we have lost something in the past half century. In 1992 the pub became the COURTYARD.This sign indicates loyalty to the monarch and to England and has done so since the early seventeenth century. | |||
LICENSEES:to 1787 Thomas Grimes 1845 Ann Onions 1841 - 1850 John Lee 1861 - 1874 Joseph Hayward (or Haywood) 1879 - 1881 James Day 1886 - 1891 J. Graynoth 1893 S. A. Graynoth 1894 - 1896 Joseph Cotton 1899 - 1905 Jane Sewell 1909 - 1913 George Sumner 1913 - 1934 William Henry Grainger (moved from the Raglan Tavern) 1934 - 1945 Arthur Sheffield 1945 - 1949 Robert Sanford Lewis 1949 - 1958 Reginald Arthur Suffolk (see also City Arms, Earlsdon and Craven Arms, High Street) 1959 - 1967 Kenneth Frank Greenwell 1971 Royden Bader | |||
OWNERS:1692 Thomas King 1748 E. King, younger, son of T. King 1748 C. Harbridge & J. Pickering 1765 C. Harbridge & J. Pickering & J. Asplin & J. Chambers & W. Dawkes & J. Masfen 1837 G. Bunney 1848 S. Bunney 1935 - 1961 Flowers | |||
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