The Old Pubs of Chester Gallery

A Virtual Stroll Around the Walls of Chester

The Vanished Pubs of Chester Gallery

The Beehive, 15 Hoole Road, closed as recently as the Spring of 2011 and has become a branch of audio/video retailers Richer Sounds- who moved here from another of Chester's 'lost pubs', The George on the other side of Hoole Bridge.

Sad really, the Beehive may have been a shocking dump at the end but the loss of yet another of Chester's venerable inns is still a tragedy; the place could have been a little goldmine in the right hands. Its Saturday rock nights were legendary. Ironic, too, that the newly-painted building looks better than it has in years.

In 1892-6, when it was called The Bee Hive Hotel, the licencee was W J Armstrong, in 1902 James Enest Galt, in 1942 Mrs Martha Florence Earie.

In December 1921, Fred Lowe wrote in the pages of the Cheshire Sheaf- part of his reminiscience of Hoole in former times- "On the opposite side of the road... was a small public-house called the "Bee Hive." This house some years previously was called "Help Me Through." On the front part of the house was a painted sign, shewing a man struggling halfway through a large globe representing the world. The house stood close to the footpath and directly in front of the present spacious "Bee Hive" Hotel. There was, I believe, another version of the origin of the quaint inn sign".

hoole road and beehive
The recently-closed Beehive Hotel as part of a genteel Hoole environment around 1910.
Strolling down the middle of Hoole Road would be a most inadvisable exercise today!

beehive 1968
The Beehive in 1968; a Bents house

drunk in the beehive 1897
From the Chester Courant: 18th August 1897

beehive poster

Do you have any more information about this old pub?

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