The Golden Fleece, 29 Church Street

This public house operated in Church Street, beside what is now the Corner House.

It appears on the 1852 map of Berwick and closed in 1911. It’s confusing undertaking research on this public house because there was also a Golden Fleece Inn in Spittal.

Here’s some snippets and a brief timeline of information found about the premises using the online newspapers on Findmypast:

February 1861 – The license transferred from Eleanor Gilchrist to her unmarried daughter, Catherine Gilchrist, aged 40  

November 1875 – License transferred to John Henderson

April 1878 – In April 1878, Samuel Collins, a private in the Militia was billeted in the Golden Fleece. His behaviour was considered so serious that he was imprisoned in Newcastle with hard labour for 2 months for an incident (1)

May 1880 – Fire damages a room in the public house (2) 

June 1880 – The pub was advertised to be let. It included a description of the bar and front parlour and it stated that it had recently undergone extensive renovations, probably as a result of the fire (3)

August 1880 – John Gray becomes the landlord

2nd February 1888 – William Henry Stephenson granted licence

December 1888 – this interesting article appeared in the local newspaper about Ann Wood with the heading “One Woman Fights Thirty Men” (4)

1891 – William Henry Stephenson, aged 34 was listed as the Innkeeper. He was originally from Embleton

February 1905 – William Henry Stephenson was fined £5 including costs for allowing his house to be the habitual resort of prostitutes (5)

April 1907 – Death of William Henry Stephenson, publican . There was a special transfer of the licence to his wife (6)

March 1910 - Mrs Stephenson applied for the renewal of the licence. It includes a description of the public house. It’s interesting that there were 10 licenses premises within 200 yards of each other! Her license was not renewed. (7)

March 1911 – the unlicensed premises were put up for sale.

Since that date the premises have been a private dwelling.

If you look carefully when you pass the building today, you can still see a painted sign above the door revealing it’s history as a public house.

The Golden Fleece can be seen at the centre of this 1852 plan of Berwick