The Old Pubs of Chester Gallery

A Virtual Stroll Around the Walls of Chester

The Vanished Pubs of Chester Gallery

The Swan Hotel, known as Eddie Davies'- "The hotel with the famous film performing parrots"was a regular favourite with American servicemen stationed around Chester during WWII.

The pub had a long history. One John Deane, prebendary of Lincoln and rector of St. Bartholemew the Great in Smithfield, London, in need of investment properties to help fund a school he was founding in his birthplace, Northwich, purchased an inn in Foregate Street by the name of The Swan in 1557. The inn and surrounding land had formed part of the dissolved estates of The Fraternity of St. Anne's, a little-known religious foundation that formerly existed in the vicinity of St. John's Church. The inn was later recorded as existing in 1615. Most of the buildings in the street were burned to the ground during the Civil War Siege of Chester in 1645-6 and the later Swan rose upon the site of its destroyed earlier namesake. Its licencee was Thomas Bulkeley who died in 1783 "after many years being master of the house". The landlord in 1850 was Evan Roberts, in 1860, Robert Rider and in 1873, John W. Massey, when the place was described in the trade directory as a 'Spirit Vaults'. Its site- and that of the Classic Cinema- illustrated below- are now occupied by a branch of Woolworth's.

Chester's Vanished Pubs 1 | 2 | 3 | 4