Church Street: The Royal Hotel (view 1)
Perhaps Barnsley's best known surviving hotel/hostelry/coaching inn, the Royal Hotel is a large and distinctive Georgean building of 7 bays and 3 storeys in a prime position for travellers and residents especially on market and fair days. Note the arched doorway and blocke in arched vehicular entrance on the lower left of the image. The right ground floor area was occupied by two small shops. Prior to 1833 it was known as The White Bear (not to be confused with the Old White Bear on Shambles Street, nearby). A list of former licence holders can be see on page 14 of vol 1 of E.G.Tasker's 'Barnsley Streets'. For a brief period in the 1990s it was given the generic and unfortunate name of 'Fealty and Firkin', a disregard of its considerable heritage. For generations the Royal vied with the Queens as premier places to stay in Barnsley.
Church Street
File Number: EGT274
Tasker Trust