In the last ABC Wednesday series, I featured The Old Thirteenth Cheshire Astley Volunteer Rifleman Corps Inn in Stalybridge which has the longest pub name in Britain, but the town also boasts the shortest.
The Q Inn on Market Street and photographed left has a Blue Plaque in recognition of the fact that it is certified by the Guinness Book of Records 1995 as having the shortest pub name in the United Kingdom.
As far as I know, it still holds the record as it is all but impossible to get any shorter, although there is a here is a “pub with no name” in Southover Street, Brighton if you want to argue semantics.
But other than that, there is nothing particularly remarkable about the Q Inn for me to write about. Fortunately, there are lots of other pubs beginning with Q when it includes the word Queen.
According to the British Beer and Pub Association, the generic Queen’s Head is the seventh most popular pub name, but I’ve opted for the Queen Adelaide as a more specific example.
I believe it gave its name to the Queen Adelaide Reservoir which was on the other side of the road, although it might have been the other way round.
Built in the late 1860s, the reservoir has long since disappeared to be replaced by Sam Redfern Green which I also featured last year.
The queen in question was Adelaide of Saxe Meiningen, queen consort of William IV. She was much loved by the British people for her modesty, although this didn’t extend to having places named after her apparently.
The most notable place, of course, is the city of Adelaide. To think that Captain William Light should choose to name the capital city of South Australia in honour of a pub and a reservoir in Gee Cross.
a group called America did a song called Horse with No Name.
and you have a pub with no name. somehow, this tickles me.
ROG, ABC Wednesday team
When my son lived in London I loved to go into pubs to make drawings of the people, yes indeed the King’s and Queen’s head were quiet present but I have never seen a Q pub not even the Nameless pub in Brighton, should go there once when I am in Eastbourne in July.
When my son lived in London I loved to go into pubs to make drawings of the people, yes indeed the King’s and Queen’s head were quiet present but I have never seen a Q pub not even the Nameless pub in Brighton, should go there once when I am in Eastbourne in July.
Gattina
ABC Team
Does the Q stand for anything?
Jane x
I wondered whether Q actually stood for anything and the short answer is I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind guessing that it used to be called the Queens!
It would seem that the present day Q Inn in Stalybridge isn’t the first pub of that name in the town. The original pub with that name stood at 26, Back Grosvenor Street. It first opened as a beerhouse in 1842 and was called the White Horse, changing its name to the Q Inn in 1848. By 1935, the building was standing empty. I believe that the present day Q Inn at 3, Market Street stood next door to the building which originally had been the Railway Inn (quite apt as the building is only a matter of yards away from the railway arches that carry the main line from Lancashire to Yorkshire and beyond). The Railway Inn was demolished in 1909.
My guess is that the people at the Q Inn have “half-inched” their name out of the history books and, given that there’s nobody around from the original pub which stood at Back Grosvenor Street, it’s safe to say that they’ve got away with it.