Our next port of call at the 2025 Lancaster Live festival was the Lancaster Golden Lion. This is one of the oldest of the town’s public houses as one has existed on this very spot on Moor Lane since the 15th century. This hostelry sat on route from Lancaster Castle to Gallows Hill and is allegedly the venue where prisoners were allowed one last beverage on the way to their execution, and this list includes the famous Pendle Witches.
One local legend pertaining to this is that one tee-total chap refused the offer of a last drink, (not even a diet coke) and was then summarily hanged. Had he sensibly stayed for a cold one he would have been in the warm environs of the pub when his pardon was delivered by a courier. The lesson here is to never refuse an ale when it is offered to you, an approach I heartily approve of!
Pendle Witches. Image Credit pinterest.com
The building is purported to be haunted, where one regular spectre is the nun whose job it was to escort the condemned up the hill. It was also locally known at one point as the Whittle, the gruesome back story behind that moniker is that there was a mineral water well very close by and the local butcher used it to wash his whittle after quartering the rebels in 1715. Unsurprisingly it was never used again for drinking purposes!
None of the original building remains now, however the cellars have been used for centuries, and it is believed that within those there is a secret doorway that takes you to a veritable maze of tunnels that smugglers used in those days.
It is nowadays a small, homely spot with open mic nights on a Tuesday, live bands on a Thursday and a Saturday and folk nights on a Sunday. On the downstairs stained-glass window, you can still clearly see the imprint of Lion Ales. The Lion brewery was located in Little Harwood (their beer was also conversely known as Matthew Brown) and in my early boozing days in the mid-80’s, the town of Blackburn was awash with Lion pubs alongside many Thwaites houses, the other local brewer.
Golden Lion. Image Credit Epicure & Culture.
The huge conglomerate of Scottish and Newcastle made an offer of £186 million that the brewery could not feasibly refuse in 1987 but then they shamefully did not promote them and chose to close Lion Ales down for ever a couple of years later, and that as they say was that!
I only recall visiting there once before prior to attending a Thrills gig at the Sugarhouse round the corner in 2003. On my second attendance there was a Morecambe indie pop four piece called Life in Neon on stage. They had only formed a year earlier and had just released their first album, which was titled ‘Live in Neon’ and was recorded at Lancaster Great Hall.
We then mulched the short distance to Church Street and headed into the Lancaster Stonewell Tap which dates back to 1602.This establishment was known for many years as the Stonewell Tavern before new landlord Tim Tomlinson took over ownership in December 2017 added to his existing pubs The White Cross and The Merchants 1688.
He decided to take the hostelry in a different direction by following the trend of craft beer establishments and this also generated the new rebranded name. The location of Stonewell does have some local precedent as it appears on the first known Lancaster map drafted in 1610. The pub has also previously been known as Paddy O’Mulligans but the one with the most longevity is when it was the White Horse for a period of 180 years.
Stonewell Tap. Image Credit bpprodstorage.blob.core.windows.net
It has always been a well known music pub with live gigs taking place on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays with a vinyl DJ hitting the decks on Friday evenings. It also has regular inclusion in the annual Lancaster Beer and Pie Festival roster.
In its Mulligans phase they had visits from Countdown’s Carol Vorderman, TV gardener Charlie Dimmock and actor Timothy West and the ‘Rochdale Cowboy’ Mike Harding used to be a regular participant in their trad music session nights.
On our late afternoon foray, we caught a portion of a local three-piece folky act called Filthy Laugh. They have been in existence for over a decade and have prolifically recorded seven albums in the last five years. Their name derives from a lyric in the Belle and Sebastian song ‘The Boy with the Arab Strap’.