Most old fashioned places in the UK
We peek inside venues that have stood the test of time across the UK.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 I think with Manchester being such a historical city, a historical building and a historical city is always going to do well.
00:07 Obviously Manchester is really thriving at the minute with different kind of bars and stuff and all these new high rises.
00:12 So I think the juxtaposition of that to have this really old 500 year old building is something that people do try and sniff out.
00:21 And literally if you're a tourist and you come here and you Google 'old pubs in Manchester' the Old Wellington is going to be the first one that comes up.
00:27 The oldest building in Manchester has been licensed as a pub since the 19th century and is frequently termed the city's oldest pub.
00:35 The Old Wellington near Manchester Cathedral began its life as a draper's shop and residence when it was built in 1552
00:43 and the Grade II listed building became a licensed public house in 1830.
00:48 Since then it has survived the 1996 Manchester bombing and several structural changes
00:54 including being moved 300 metres closer to the cathedral in 1999 along with Sinclair's Oyster Bar to form Chambles Square.
01:03 Despite often being referred to as Manchester's oldest pub, the Old Wellington did not operate as a public house until 278 years after being built.
01:12 It is still recognised as Manchester's oldest building and has many original features and traditional characteristics
01:19 making it a top site for tourists and locals alike.
01:23 We're a three-storey building. Bottom floor, obviously we've got the outdoor space, we've got the main bar.
01:28 Middle floor we've got a restaurant, a little mini bar on there and then this top floor is just sort of additional seating.
01:34 I think they have done a good job of like I say keeping most of it intact and I think that's why they had to sort of rather than take it down brick by brick and rebuild it
01:42 they've decided to literally lift it and wheel it to try and keep everything intact.
01:48 So there are obviously things have had to be done.
01:50 People are always quite fascinated by how many of the original beams are still here considering how old it is.
01:56 Especially when we get Americans coming in because we get a lot of tourists for that reason.
02:01 They're always blown away because it's literally older than the country that they've come from.
02:05 This pub from that angle over there is like the most photographed point in the city so everybody sort of recognises it and everybody gets kind of excited when they find it.
02:13 You know tourists are just sort of like absolutely in awe and amazed.
02:16 So I'd say we're mainly tourists. That's probably our bread and butter from a Monday to a Sunday.
02:24 The Old Wellington is attached in an L shape to another historic pub, St Clair's Oyster Bar.
02:30 The two used to be joined side by side and many customers often confuse the pair.
02:35 A lot of the time people will confuse us and them.
02:38 So they'll think they're going to the Old Wellington whereas they're really in St Clair's.
02:42 Because even our sign is in their beer garden.
02:47 I'd say we've got one of the best beer gardens in the city.
02:50 It's nice and simple but it's in a really great area.
02:55 You don't get any trouble and it's always good to, like I say, see the oldest building in the city.
03:02 You might as well if you're coming to Manchester.
03:05 Okay so I'm on the corner of Bath Street and Wells Street and what you see behind me is the Woodman pub.
03:13 Now Birmingham had a number of Woodman pubs but this one I particularly like because it's in the style.
03:20 It's called Tudor Beetham and that's because it's not Tudor and it's not Elizabethan.
03:26 But it was built in the late 1800s and it was a local pub in the Jewellery Quarter.
03:34 What I have a photograph of is the owners and they were called the Atkinsons standing outside it around about 1800.
03:43 I just love this couple because they're really proud about having their pub.
03:48 The interesting thing about this site was that it's thought this was where a beer house stood.
03:54 Beer houses were enabled by an Act of Parliament in the 1700s because cheap gin was being imported into Birmingham.
04:03 And Britain on the whole and there was an epidemic of alcoholism.
04:08 And there's a famous illustration by the artist Hogarth called Gin Street where people were lying in the street drunk, fighting, neglecting their children.
04:18 So the government allowed small houses to start producing small amounts of beer and it's thought this is one of those houses were here.
04:29 One of the things I use to talk about the pubs is a booklet that was written in the 1970s by a man called Fred Pearse.
04:36 He said "a monument to years accumulation of all manner of kitsch to fill a pub up with".
04:43 The original idea was perhaps nautical.
04:46 The main public bar with its raised lounge area was filled with lifebelts, ships, lamps, models and pictures, shells etc.
04:55 But there has since spawned a glass bottle collection, a northern ware jar collection, an alligator with a broken tail, a gun or two, Toby mugs, little baskets of plastic flowers with a plastic budgerigar to match.
05:10 Not an inch or wall or ceiling in this really very small pub is left unadorned.
05:17 One of the other things that really impresses me about the Woodman is that it stood next door to the Swallow Raincoat Company.
05:25 The Swallow Raincoat Company was quite a prestigious raincoat company.
05:30 In fact in the 1950s a raincoat there cost £10.10.
05:36 I just love the idea that on a rainy Friday evening after work the workers would pour out from the Swallow Raincoat Company and you'd see them standing around the bar area in their probably Swallow Raincoat second raincoats.
05:54 Unfortunately industry moved out of the Jewellery Quarter in the 1980s and the pub closed and became an office.
06:03 But it still has the memories and people still remember coming here and enjoying the Woodman pub.
06:09 Newcastle is full of so much history and you can normally find out a lot about it.
06:17 But there are some parts of Newcastle's history that are a bit mysterious.
06:21 Now this street probably looks very normal and many people in Newcastle probably walked past it and not even realised the thing that we're actually going to talk about.
06:29 If you haven't spotted it already it is quite small behind me but it is the Vampire Rabbit and it sits just on top of the archways on a building opposite Newcastle Cathedral.
06:39 The Vampire Rabbit is a strange creature that sits on the top of the archway of the Cathedral buildings.
06:45 It is painted black and has some very crazy looking eyes which are very hard not to look at.
06:51 Its bright red claws hang over the edge as it looks down at you and if you look up you will be able to see its huge red fangs as well.
06:58 But why is such a strange animal statue placed on top of an entrance to a building?
07:03 As I look for the reasons why the Vampire Rabbit is there a lot of the information was stories and myths.
07:09 Nobody really knows why the rabbit was added to the building which was built in 1901 but a lot of people have theories.
07:16 One of those theories was that grave robbers were active around the Cathedral back in the day until one night the Vampire Rabbit rose above the graveyard to scare them off.
07:25 Another story linked to that is that the Vampire Rabbit had actually attacked the grave robbers and sucked their blood.
07:31 Another story is that the rabbit was actually meant to be a hare but the ears were put on backwards which gave it its strange looks.
07:38 That story is based off Sir George Hare Phippsen who was a friend of William Wood who was one of the architects to work on the Cathedral that sits on the other side of the small road.
07:48 It is a strange part of Newcastle's history but do any of the Geordies know about it?
07:53 If you know of a kind of a historic thing that's in Newcastle, the Vampire Rabbit, do you know what it is?
08:01 No.
08:02 You've never heard of the Vampire Rabbit?
08:04 No.
08:05 Apparently people know about it but I'm assuming that you've never heard of it before?
08:08 I know where the Vampire Rabbit is, it's on the sundial facing J.D. Scott's, above J.D. Scott's barbershop on the Amen Corner.
08:18 It's actually up one on the sundial there. That is a Vampire Rabbit as well.
08:24 Do you know what the Vampire Rabbit is?
08:26 No.
08:27 Have you never heard of it before?
08:28 No.
08:29 Everyone calls it the Vampire Rabbit. Have you never heard of it?
08:32 Is that by grown-ups have been getting dressed up as rabbits and standing there?
08:36 Oh I'm not sure, I didn't know about that.
08:38 Yeah, so it was a group of adults dressed as rabbits or whatever standing under anything.
08:43 And have you never heard of anything like that?
08:45 No.
08:46 And I was married to a Geordie for 23 years and she never knew.
08:52 No, because I've never been that far.
08:55 As we took a trip to see the Vampire Rabbit, a few people walked by to see it.
09:00 But even after talking to them, they didn't know the real reason why it was there.
09:04 So it looks like we may just have to see if anyone can find the real reason why the Vampire Rabbit sits on the archway.
09:11 [no audio]