History of the British Pub

A time honoured Bristol pub is generally what an English pub would be. Pubs in Bristol are generally the meeting place for friends to have a relaxed evening. Usually the pub has not only been a place for people to go and have a drink but much more. It has been a venue for relaxing as well as for colleagues and business partners to meet. In a village as also in many other places, a pub tends to become the focal point of community activities. It was the Victorians who gave the public house the name pub. It was the Romans who gave England its first pubs almost two thousand years ago.

In Rome the tabernae was a place for serving food and wine which is the origin of this concept. When the Romans departed from Rome, the tabernae did so too. However the pubs really did not come to a close with this as each successive invader brought with them their love for drinking. For instance the Anglo-Saxons established alehouses that grew out of domestic dwellings. The English Civil War of 1642 was funded by the taxes imposed on the alehouses, taverns and inns. The warring parties would billet their troops in these places. The alehouses would normally change their name based on who was winning the war.

For instance the name of an alehouse could change to Kings Head and then to Nags Head and back again based on who was ahead in the war. Even the contemporary pubs are often named on a particular event in history. Made with frosted or smoked glass the windows of the pubs were generally translucent. This gave the customers inside some privacy from outside. In the last twenty years or so the pubs in England have started installing clear glass windows to give a brighter interior. Till the 1970s most of the larger pubs also had off-sales counter or attached shops for the sales of beers, wines and spirits for home consumption. As the bigger retailers and supermarkets made their way in to this business this situation changed.