Westminster pub closure – ‘a calamity for our St Ann’s community’

The Westminster Hotel has been part of the old St Ann’s since the turn of the century, situated on St Ann’s Well Road adjacent Donkey Hill, and is named after the grandiose Westminster Abbey in London.

The old building was demolished as part of the area’s slum clearance program in 1970 and the present building was opened in 1971.

The first Landlord was Harry Carnell, and a year later Stan Burcanshaw took over the Westminster pub.

In a 1999 interview with social historian Ruth Johns he said “When I first came here in 1972, the estate was still being knocked down and the new estate being built. My first wife used to stand on this doorstep in the morning when the workmen were coming in off the site, and ask them to take their dirty boots off.

“There was sludge everywhere. There were still two pubs left on the estate; one of them was across the road. The Havelock and the other was the old St Ann s Inn. A smashing chap in there, he worked for our brewery for nineteen years and he had the new St Ann's Inn on Shelton Street. The old St Ann's Inn was the last pub to be knocked down. Before demolition there were over fifty pubs on this estate. Many of them Shipstone's. And there were four or five good little breweries here as well, but they all lost their licences. The Council gave them to the big three, Home Brewery, Shipstone's and Mansfield Brewery.

“There used to be a sign Westminster Abbey outside. It was about the only pub named after the Abbey. Then they changed the name to the Wheeltappers. The big Westminster Abbey sign, which cost £3,000 and came second in a championship of the best signs in England, went. They ruined the pub; made it an entertainment pub and it went down and down. And then they couldn't afford the entertainment and let it go tenanted. I came in as Manager.

St Ann’s 2012 Remembrance Event at the Westminster Pub

Evening Post News story by Jayne Garfitt

“I was here two and a half years, and Shipstone's then asked me to open up a brand new pub at Rainworrh called the Sherwood. I spent five happy years there, and then the brewery asked me to come back here. It had been run down by management. I've been back here eighteen years. Shipstone's sold out to Greenalls about 22 years ago and Greenalls sold out to Nomura over two years ago. It's a Japanese bank!”

The pub then changed it name back to The Westminster, and today is owned by Punch Taverns.

Established in 1997, Punch Taverns is one of the UK’s largest leased pub companies with a portfolio of around 5,000 pubs nationwide.

The Westminster was put on the Market in February 2012, and a Carlton based congregation of Jehovah witnesses, who have their main Kingdom Hall situated in Victoria Park off Bath Street, St Ann’s, offered to buy the pub on condition their planning application was successful.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses submitted plans to demolish the Westminster pub and build a new single story Kingdom Hall on the site. However, regulars put up stiff opposition and the proposals stalled in May.

Sadly, after closing on November 18^th there was a break in. It’s not known if anything was stolen during the burglary or if any vandalism was caused inside the pub itself, however, Punch Taverns took the decision to close down The Westminster after 41 years serving the St Ann’s Community.

The closure of ‘The Wessy’ this week has shocked local residents & the pub’s regular customers, who fought really hard to keep the pub open for the benefit of elderly, and disabled people. These locals now have nowhere else to go & socialise anywhere in St Ann’s today; its a social calamity.

By Richard Pearson