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

Drinking in an Old English Town

Tollgate, Holyhead Road

This pub is near the site where the toll house stood on the Birmingham Road. The toll house and gate was the place where it was necessary to pay a fee to use that stretch of road, the income thus generated being used on the upkeep of the road. This is a good example of an inter-war pub, 'Moderne' in style, with the emphasis on the horizontal, with rendered walls, rounded corners, a flat roof and broad, metal-framed windows. In April 1937 the licences of the Pilot Inn, Much Park Street, and the Half Moon Inn, Yardley Street, were to be surrendered in order that the Tollgate could be licensed. A large advert in the Midland Daily Telegraph on the 1st October 1938 announced the opening of the pub the following Tuesday, the 4th. The opening was carried out by Mayor Alice Arnold, received on arrival by Arthur Mitchell, deputy chairman of Mitchell and Butlers Ltd.

LICENSEES: 1938 Arthur Partridge Jack Jarvis 1958 - 1960 onwards Derek Maynard (see also Prince William Henry, Foleshill Road)