The Roscoe Head on Roscoe Street opened as a pub back in the 1830s and has established itself as a landmark in the city. The earliest appearance in the newspaper archives is 1835 when it was ran by G. A. Green (Liverpool Mercury, 2nd October 1835). Green sold it in 1841 and it is listed as Roscoe’s Head PH on the 1847 O/S map. Commemorating Liverpool historian, poet and leading campaigner for the abolition of slavery, William Roscoe, it consists of a main bar, two small rooms and a tiny snug and much tradition has been kept at The Roscoe Head, and with no jukeboxes or fruit machines in sight, the business prides itself on being a 'conversation pub'. It is one of the few pubs in Liverpool, if not Great Britain, to have survived the onslaught of the large pub chains. Known and loved for its beers, it is also the "only pub in the North of England" to appear in every edition of the CAMRA Good Beer Guide since it was first published 50 years ago in 1974. From the outside, the Roscoe appears small and intimate but the four comfortable rooms inside are decorated with brewery memorabilia and mirrors. Serving impeccable pints of Tetley Bitter and Timothy Taylor Landlord, with guest beers from local brewers, the pub was originally owned by Walkers of Warrington and Landlady Carol had no problems with the lease she had with Walkers but life changed for the worse when the Thatcher government introduced legislation known as the Beer Orders in the 1990s.
When large brewers were told they had to turn their pubs into free houses, many gave up and left the industry. The 'pub co arrived: non-brewing companies that jettisoned the convivial relationship brewers had enjoyed with their tenants. Out went low rents and affordable beer. Now tenants had to pay top dollar for beer while rents went through the roof. Carol found herself at the mercy of the giant national pub company, Punch Taverns, that had acquired a national chain of thousands of pubs, many from the former Bass empire. Punch forced her to pay an eye-watering rent that rose from £17,000 a year to £20,000 and then to £31,000 following a refurbishment of the pub. Relations between Carol and Punch soured when the pub company changed her lease and no longer allowed her to choose one guest beer free of the tie. They took her to court for allegedly selling beer outside the tie and she suffered the indignity of Punch sending in a specialist company, Brulines, which ran tests on her cellar to see if she was still taking beers outside the tie. She wasn't, but relations with Punch were by now so appalling she thought they could only improve when it sold The Roscoe to New River Retail's pub division, Hawthorn Leisure. It wasn't to be. Hawthorn refused to allow Carol to have MRO status – Market Rent Only – that would have allowed her to buy her own beers in return for an increased rent. Hawthorn then said that when her lease expired in 2021 they would convert the pub to management. That would mean Carol leaving her home above the pub. However she saved her beloved Roscoe Head pub at the end of 2020 after a long battle with her landlords and it is a thriving concern.
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2026/05/liverpool-pub-crawl-peter-kavanaghs.html
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