A very short cut to the pub

Number 12 used to have a very useful facility – direct access to the Borough Tavern that was at number 39 Borough Street. The back of the pub was just on the other side of the wall, and there was a doorway between the two properties.

The passage from the pub emerges in Temple Street, giving thirsty punters a very handy short cut.

Ian Burridge, who now owns number 12, told me he had come across a blocked off doorway when he was renovating a room at the back of his property, in the position that can be seen on the Ordnance Survey below.

This seems to explain the glass ball hanging outside the house in the recently discovered photograph, detail below, on which the word 'Spirits' can be seen. Spirits and more were to be enjoyed only a few steps away.

Temple Street on an Ordnance Survey map of the 1890s

 The passageway to the pub (marked P.H.) through Number 11 Temple Street

The glass ball advertising 'Wines, To Order, Spirits' above the passageway to the pub in Borough Street