Pubs and Bars / Pub of the Week
Pub of the Week: The Stag & Hounds
It’s a brave landlord to ostracise a pub’s former customer base soon after taking it on. But that’s exactly what Owen Shanks of the Stag & Hounds has done.
In recent years, the Old Market pub was well known as a boisterous venue for live music. After a refurbishment both inside and out, Shanks wants the Stag to head in a different direction.
“The pub was never really supposed to be about heavy music events, that’s just sort of happened over time, but there will be less of that now,” he told the Bristol Post.
is needed now More than ever
“This building isn’t structurally suited for events of such nature, so we will go back to being a more traditional pub, although we will still host some music events.
“I feel really lucky to be the landlord of a pub which has just had a refurbishment in an area like Old Market, which is massively on the up.”
The Stag & Hounds retains a number of historic features
The Stag, now the sister pub to the Farm in St Werburgh’s and the Cadbury in Montpelier, has a fascinating history.
Once home to the medieval pie poudre court, which heard market disputes, it was rebuilt at the end of the 17th century.
Following the creation of the Temple Way underpass, cutting off Old Market Street from Castle Park, the pub is now somewhat marooned next to the Old Market roundabout; adjoining a student accommodation block called the Print Hall, so named because it was until recently the site of the Post’s printing presses.
On a recent Wednesday evening, Pete Bennett – the winner of Big Brother in 2006 – was running the karaoke in one corner.
“That was, err, fantastic,” said Bennett, best known for helping to raise awareness of Tourette’s Syndrome, after one punter’s particularly out of tune rendition of John Denver’s Take Me Home, Country Roads.
Bennett himself took to the mic for a duet of The Chain by Fleetwood Mac and a solo rendition of Lovely Day by Bill Withers.
It’s one way to get new customers through the door of this historic pub.
The Stag & Hounds, 74 Old Market Street, Old Market, Bristol, BS2 0EJ
0117 239 9156
Read more: Old Market named as one of UK’s coolest neighbourhoods
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