Did you have a favourite haunt and long for nostalgic days of quirky bars, chararacters behind the bar or dancing on tables?
A community project has been gathering pace online, enlisting the public to submit their memories, information and photos about long - and not so long - lost pubs in their areas.
The nationwide project has developed a website www.closedpubs.co.uk listing towns and villages across the country, including many in Lincolnshire and the Sleaford area where pubs and bars have closed, inviting people to add their information for accuracy, saying such things as when they first opened, when they closed and photos of what they looked like.
So far the project website has 40,008 lost pubs listed, with 26,449 photos. There are 1,415 “lost” pubs listed in Lincolnshire.
These pubs are viewed as a voice to what was happening in the neighbourhood, where contacts were made and broadened with the hope and promise of opportunities that would improve the life of your family, as well as being a place of deals being done. Above all, it was a comfort to know that the local was always there for you. Until one day it wasn’t’.
The archive project is reliant on people’s input before they are forgotten for ever. If you know of a pub which has closed at any time in the past, submit it, together with any anecdotes, historical information, updates or photographs that you might have. Pubs do re-open from time to time, so if you see one on the site that is open let them know.
Maybe you can help correct entries? They will be grateful for the input. You may even be able to supply “missing” pictures, to get the best and most accurate record before the pubs are either pulled down for development or turned into houses.
Can readers offer their pub memories or pictures of the inside of their long lost boozer or of pub events?
Just in Sleaford, lost pubs listed so far are: the Bristol Arms, Market Place; Cross Keys, Eastgate; Crown & Woolpack, Southgate; Hope & Anchor, Southgate; Marquis Of Granby, 65 Westgate; Railway Hotel, Station Road; Red Lion, 50 Westgate; Royal Oak, Eastgate; Still, Eastgate - closed 1962; Victoria, 20 Southgate; Waggon & Horses, 13 Eastgate; White Bull, 14 Southgate; White Hart, Southgate; White Swan, West Street.
One that we know of from Sleaford Museum that has long gone is the Queen Inn, on Castle Causeway. It closed and was demolished and replaced by Westgate Flats in 1971.
Can you help with lost pubs in surrounding villages too?
1.
The Crown and Woolpack in Southgate, Sleaford. Now shops. EMN-220120-121132001 Photo: Midlands
2.
The Red Lion in Westgate, Sleaford. The site is now occupied by a terrace of new houses. EMN-220120-121142001 Photo: Midlands
3.
The Waggon and Horses in Eastgate, Sleaford. Now flats. EMN-220120-121202001 Photo: Midlands
4.
The Oatsheaf was situated at East Heckington. This was a Soames Brewery pub that was sold to Steward & Patteson in 1949. It was closed on January 31, 1966 and is now a private house. EMN-220120-122153001 Photo: Midlands