CAMPAIGN FOR REAL ALE

MERSEYSIDE - Liverpool, Walton, Prince Arthur

National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors Part One

93 Rice Lane, Walton, Liverpool, L9 1AD

(corner Arthur St)

Tel: 0151 525 4508

Public Transport: MerseyRail: Rice Lane

Listed Status: Grade II

View this pub on a local map

The Prince Arthur is not as well-known as the Philharmonic or the Vines, those great Liverpool prodigy pubs. It suffers from being a bit out of town but is certainly worth a visit. The plain, buff brick building itself dates from the middle of the nineteenth century but was given an impressive refitting, probably about 1905. The red tiling, etched and coloured glass and unusually detailed window tracery give some idea of what to find inside. The public bar is situated in the angle of the building and is surrounded by a corridor (just as at the Stork, Birkenhead, and the Lion, Liverpool). It has deep red tiling in the wall dado and also on the counter front; there are stubby screens projecting from the counter to give a sense of separate spaces (see our photo). At the back of the servery screenwork mirrors the detailing in the external windows. There is a drinking lobby in an expanded part of the corridor and to the rear a large smoke room. The tiling continues round the corridor area. Palatial urinals.

A letter in What's Brewing (August 2000 from Harry Garlick) suggests a date of the 1880s for the pub. The census of 1871 shows the site had no connection with the pub trade but the author's aunt was born in the pub in 1892. Architecturally the building is rather old-fashioned for the 1980s but ordinary street-corner pubs were never at the cutting edge of architectural fashion so the rather vibrant, coloured brick exterior, more usually associated with the 1860s or '70s, might be a hangover into the 1880s.