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Cross Keys, Smithford Street

These premises have been known by different names during their history:FROMTONAME
15701750Cross Keys
1671?Black Horse
1756?Flower de Luce and Crown
17951926Fleur de Lis
18351835Beerhouse
Smithford St, c1900
Smithford Steet around the turn of the 20th century. This pub is the short building just the other side of Swain & Son on the left.
On the right can more clearly be seen the Old Baths Hotel.
There are documents in Lincoln Record Office concerning this pub dated 1570 and 1614. In 1671 we read of a mesuage formerly known as the Cross keys, now called the Black Horse. Yet it later reverts to the Cross Keys as in the will of John Moore dated 1729, the Cross Keys is listed as being owned by him. In 1731 John Moore dies and leaves the Cross Keys to the Trustees of the Unitarian Meeting House in Vicar Lane, which is built partly on yard of the pub. The first regular stagecoach from Coventry to London ran from 6th August 1750. It began from the Cross Keys in Smithford Street and took two days initially, reduced to 14 1/2 hours by the end of the century. In 1795 a victualler tenanted the former Cross Keys, later the FLEUR DE LIS, Smithford Street.

This is a common sign in Christian heraldry referring to St Peter, to whom Jesus said, 'I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven'. The papal arms show crossed keys, and they occur again in the arms of various bishops such as those of Exeter, Gloucester, Peterborough, Ripon, and St Asaph, where the cathedral in each case is dedicated to St. Peter.

LICENSEES:

1729 William Perkins
Cross Keys
Street plan of 1851
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