1800. Imagine Lancaster’s bustling quayside - England’s fourth largest port - the jostling crowd of sailors, merchants, errand boys, traders and ladies of both good and ill repute. Legend has it that there were 50 hostelries along this quay, catering for the crews that picked up slaves from Africa which then travelled to America to trade them for cargoes of rum, spices and tobacco.

The Wagon & Horses (then the Cart & Horses) was a beer house, quenching the thirst of those who toiled for a living. Frequented mostly by workers and the poor, beer houses were often hotbeds of vice with the drinking day beginning at 6am and continuing until late in the night.

Lancaster boomed until the 1840s, when Liverpool began to service larger ships. The port here declined and with it many of the quayside pubs. Not so the Wagon & Horses which probably owes its survival to innkeeper Arthur Kirkham who saw the pub through these dark days and left it, along with 9 other properties to his wife Ann when he died.

Since then it has continued to prosper, and our customers have always been loyal, even when the spring tides have forced them to drink with their shoes off and the water whirling round their ankles. It is thanks to you, and our relationship with Robinsons that we have been able to undertake this extensive restoration. From one lowly room it has, over the years, extended to take in 3 former houses and an attached warehouse. Much more than just a drinking den now, we are proud of our food and our new guest rooms and we look forward to the forthcoming regeneration of this part of town.

The ships may have gone, but the people still come and sit amongst the ghosts of drinkers past, as history lives all around them.