The Anchor Inn, gone, but not forgotten
There were well over 100 pubs, inns and beer-houses in Ormskirk over the centuries. Most of them are now long gone. One of the lost houses was the Anchor, AKA the Blue Anchor, a large inn occupying 26 and 28 Moor Street, built adjacent to the Queen's Head and quite probably actually attached to it before being converted to the inn from two dwellings. The Anchor had to the right hand side of it a small alleyway, only about 4 feet wide, which led up to the Moorland to the south of the town. This small passageway was known as The Moor Gate. After the licence renewal was rejected in 1892, The Anchor closed. A few years later it was demolished and the wider exit to the south became known as Moorgate. The image shows the narrow gap at the side of the old Anchor Inn, for a short while it was used as a warehouse.
Tragedy at the Rope and Anchor Inn 1862
Alice Wildgoose moved to Ormskirk from her home town of Wigan to take up a position with the Bath Springs Brewery on Derby Street in the early 1860s. Alice was born on the 17th November 1821, by the age of 29 she had been in service in Standishgate, Wigan since being a young girl. Soon after arriving in Ormskirk however Alice met and married John Freeman, the son of Peter Freeman. John was the tenant landlord and licensee of the Rope and Anchor Inn, (Anchor) Moor Street. The couple married at the Parish Church on the 10th of July 1862. Just 8 months after their wedding, Alice died late one night after catching fire whilst sitting in front of her bedroom fire as she counted the days takings. The Freeman family were not successful at the Anchor, One patron died in the workhouse a few days after a fall in their kitchen and the man who caused the fall was tried for manslaughter. Thomas Freeman, John's Uncle who held the license before him, was unable to keep an orderly house with several serious fights taking place and court cases brought against Freeman.
Mrs. Almond's Pig Business at the Anchor Inn
Mrs Ann Almond ran the Anchor Inn after the death of her husband Robert in December 1869 he was only 39. Rufford born Robert had been the tenant at the Beerhouse in Burscough that became the Royal Hotel before moving to the Anchor.
The family seemed to be making plans to expand their business by building a piggery behind the Inn and set up a regular trade of pigs on the Thursday market. After Robert died Ann carried on and with the help of her family did establish a good pig breeding business and successfully traded on the pig market. Whilst the Queen's Head landlord William Culshaw also started his own pig market at the rear of his inn, Ann seems to have been more successful with the selling of the pigs. She did however clash with the Ormskirk Local Board of Health who noticed that whilst market traders had to pay for water to wash their stock before market, there was no charge for water for washing the pigs the drovers brought in from Ireland. This was changed and the extra cost of the water cut into the profits. Ormskirk had an early piped fresh water supply, from about 1855, but pubs and businesses had water meters, Ann had avoided using her metered water supply, using the communal pump shared with Newsham's slaughter house behind the Anchor. Newsham paid 24 shillings a year to have all the water he needed but Ann was not paying for that supply. The Board directed that Ann should be charged 10 shillings a year, some weeks there were up to 30 small pigs delivered and she was selling out every week.
Ann left the Anchor after re-marring Thomas Bull in 1878, her son John Almond carried on the pig dealing business from premises in Aughton Street. Ann died in 1895 aged 62, leaving an estate valued at £345., just less than £58,000 if compared to todays rates.
Greenall and Whitley
In 1891 Greenall Whitley & Co were owners of the Anchor Inn on Moor Street. Ormskirk. The landlord was Joseph Whitley who in November 1891 was planning to demolish the Anchor Inn and rebuild it. The Licensing Justices at the Ormskirk Brewster Sessions gave Joseph a hard time over his application to rebuild the Anchor. His application and subsequent appeal failed and Joseph left the business. The license was not renewed and the Anchor closed for business .
Police Superintendent Richard Jervis vs the Anchor Inn
Ormskirk's longstanding Superintendent of Police, Richard Jervis, was central to a heated debate at the 1891 and 1892 annual Brewster Sessions regarding the future of the Anchor Inn, Moor Street.
Superintendent Jervis was an incredibly influential figure in the town: he had been appointed to his post in 1877 and continued until he retired in 1907 aged 78 (at the time the oldest serving police superintendent in England). A leading proponent of improved living conditions, Jervis blamed the over supply of pubs and drinking houses in Ormskirk for many of its ills and led a long campaign to have their numbers reduced.
He was well prepared with facts and figures at the 1891 hearing when the then landlord, Joseph Whalley, applied for a renewal of his licence. The Anchor was one of four pubs which Superintendent Jervis objected to, on the grounds that there were too many licensed premises for the size of the town.
He claimed that if Ormskirk were to be put on the same footing as Southport, there would be only 13 houses as opposed to the existing 45. He went on to explain that Moor Street was 200 yards long yet there were six public houses and two beerhouses and it was therefore already supplied beyond its requirements. Police Sergeant Carson was asked to corroborate these figures, which he did, adding that the population of the town had declined by 359 in the last 10 years and there were now 140 people to each licensed house; in Southport the figure was one per every 780 persons.
On this occasion Superintendent Jervis did not get his way and the Anchor's licence was renewed for another year.
At the October 1892 Brewster Sessions there was a similar debate, but with a very different outcome which signalled the end of the road for the Anchor, despite it being considered one of Ormskirk's oldest inns.
This time it was Thomas Heslip, landlord since April that year, who applied for the licence to be renewed. He was very optimistic that the improvements made to the inn over the previous year would encourage the magistrates to look favourably on his application. He claimed the property was now in a good sanitary condition, drainage around it had been improved, there were decreased facilities for drinking and an area for dining had been created. In addition two of its four doors had been removed, changes which would make it easier for the police to monitor the premises.
It was all to no avail, not even the pleas of the town's pig traders, who carried out their business in the Anchor, could sway the magistrates and Thomas Heslip's application was refused; another small victory in Superintendent Jervis's mission.
The Anchor Inn premises after closure as a public house
Whilst the Anchor Inn did not survive as a pub into the 20th Century, the building remained in partial use for a few years. Shropshire born butchers daughter Hannah Jacks took on one half the premises to operate as a Tripe & Chipped Potatoe restaurant. Tripe dressing was an extra skill butcher would use to prepare the stomach lining of a pig or cow to make it soft enough to fry with onions. It was a hearty meal for those who couldn’t afford a butchers cut of pork or beef. Hannah’s family run business, her brother and sister in law helped her, will have had a small market stall outside the shop selling small take a way portions to visitors to the Thursday market. By 1910 the Anchor building was demolished. Behind the Anchor yard small shops and businesses were growing in the Moor Gate court area and re- development was overdue.