Category: Research

Soak up the history of one of Nottingham’s most distinctive pub buildings and the brewery that turned it Egyptian.

There are still a few places available for my architecture tour Deco in the Details Part 1, Thursday 23 October, 11 am – see the previous post for more info on one of the featured buildings.

I’m going to be covering the other side of town on Deco in the Details Part 2 on Thursday 30 October, 11 am so I thought I’d highlight one of the buildings that we will visit – The Bath Inn, Handel Street, Sneinton Market.

I touched on the history of The Bath Inn when I looked at Nottingham’s Art Deco Pubs, but since then I met a descendant of Thomas Losco Bradley (the owner of the Midland Brewery, originally responsible for refurbishing the pub in Egyptian style), so I thought I’d delve a little more deeply into the story.

There is an older building, originally built in the 1820s, beneath the 1928 refaced exterior of The Bath Inn, which itself has been restored and reinvigorated by the present publican, Piers Wheatcroft Baker. 

Before it was refurbished in the 1920s, the landlord was Frederick Knibb (possibly seen in the photo above). The name above the door is a previous landlord, Thomas Bagshaw (c.1885). By the time the work was done on the exterior, the landlord was Tom Hollingworth, who had previously been a tobacconist. His wife Annie carried on running the pub after his death in 1934 until at least 1939. 

The pub is a Listed Building described as stucco with a faience pubfront (the glazed tiles are typical of those used in many 1920s and 1930s buildings). It has a rebated, rounded corner and on both sides, the now-rare Egyptian stylings are visible in the ornamented cornice and the columns with bunched reeds as capitals around the doors. There are giant Egyptian pilasters with decorated capitals down the length of the building, now partly hidden behind the hanging baskets. 

Ancient Egypt was all the rage in the 1920s thanks to the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922. Read more about it on Historic England’s blog.

In the 1920s, The Bath Inn was one of the tied houses belonging to The Midland Brewery, owned by Thomas Losco Bradley. The Midland Brewery was then based at 119 Northgate, New Basford, but had begun in the late 1890s when Bradley started brewing ales at the pub he kept on Raleigh Street, The Barleycorn (now demolished). 

Thomas Losco Bradley was the son of Thomas Bradley, who had run another pub in Radford, The Cricketers Arms on Alfreton Road. They were at the Cricketers in 1881 but by the time of the census in 1891, the Bradleys had moved to The Barleycorn. 

Thomas Losco Bradley took over The Barleycorn from his father and began brewing his own beers. He lived at Second Avenue, Sherwood Rise, with his wife Alice and son Thomas Losco Bradley Jr. 

Around 1907 the business expanded and Thomas Losco Bradley purchased the brewery building on Northgate, New Basford from Madden & Dell. By now the company was called The Midland Brewery and their beers came to be known (in their advertising at least) as “Bradley’s Brilliant Ales.”

In 1928, Bradley’s Ales were awarded First Prize at the Brewers’ Exhibition in London. Perhaps The Bath Inn was refitted in celebration of this victory?

Thomas Losco Bradley was a well-known figure locally. He owned racehorses and as master of the Rufford Hunt, was often photographed in The Tatler mingling with the county set. His wife bred Fox Terriers at their home Munden House and was featured in The Ladies’ Field magazine in 1917 with her dogs, who all had the pedigree name ‘Cromwell’. 

At the time of his death in 1930, Thomas Losco Bradley Snr had moved to Holly Lodge, Oxton and he was buried in his pink hunting kit after a service at St Barnabas Cathedral. His ‘favourite lemon and white smooth haired Fox Terrier, “Nettle”, with a black bow round its neck attended the funeral’. (Granthan Journal, 5 April 1930).

The Brewery continued to be run by his son Thomas Losco Bradley Jr, with several tied houses, many of which are still Nottingham pubs today, including The Sir John Borlase Warren, The King William (aka The Billy), The Hand in Heart, and The Foresters (New Foresters), along with several outside the city. 

In 1954, Shipstones purchased the brewery and its pubs, The Bath Inn and the others became Shipstones houses. In the 1990s, it was briefly a Greenall’s pub, and for a while it was part-pub, part-fish and chip shop. 

It closed down, but in 2021 was reopened by Piers Wheatcroft Baker, who has gone on to do great things. He has restored the exterior and added an Art Deco flavour to the inside of the pub, along with many characterful elements worthy of his pedigree – his father is Doctor Who actor Tom Baker and his mother was part of the Wheatcroft family of Sneinton rose growers, including her uncle, the flamboyant Harry Wheatcroft, who was born in Handel Street, just a stone’s throw from the pub. Read more about the regeneration of The Bath Inn in Nottingham’s own Left Lion or drop in for a pint (sadly not of Bradley’s Brilliant Ales).

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