Pilgrim Street was originally known as Jamieson Street, in the Georgian Quarter of Liverpool, but was renamed after The Pilgrim privateer pirate ship. Thomas Barton, a member of the Liverpool Merchants Lodge No.241, owned the privateer 'The Pilgrim', which captured a French ship 'La Liberte'. The cargo was brought into Liverpool docks and realised £190,000, then an immense sum. It is interesting to know that Merchants' Lodge was founded in Liverpool in 1780. The first Master was Thomas Golightly, a wine merchant by trade, a ship-owner, and an Alderman on the Town Council who had been Mayor in 1772. He was to be made Treasurer of the town in 1789, a position he held until shortly before his death in 1821. The other eight founders included a surgeon and chemist, a ships painter, a ship-owner, a ship's captain (who was also a privateer), a merchant who was also a ship-owner, and four others who were just designated as merchants. Some were directly involved with the slave trade and in privateering, as were most of the inhabitants of Liverpool at that time.
The street has for decades also been home to a pub of the same name, The Pilgrim, a Liverpool institution which opened within an 18th century former warehouse on Pilgrim Street, the signage says 1798 which was when the building was built. The pub, as we have come to know it, only materialised in the early 1980s as before then it was an art gallery, and in the 1960s was used as a warehouse for storing paint. Newspaper reports indicate it was also The Popular Sweet Stores selling Sharp's Super-Kreme Toffee between its life as the home of Johnstone's Paints from the 25th of February 1924 and the Liverpool Academy of Art in 1978. A Liverpool Echo article on the 27th of November 1978 reported "After 18 months as a building site the transformation of 34 Pilgrim Street from disused chocolate factory for a permanent home for Liverpool Academy of Art is complete." It then became the Pilgrim Restaurant and Bistro in 1982.
It has since become an iconic venue for Liverpool artists, musicians, academics, students and bohemians for over 4 decades, famous for its table jukeboxes for many years. They remain in situ, although sadly now just for decoration as their functional days are long behind them. In their stead a new vintage free box and a retro pinball machine.
After being taken over by the company behind The Vines, The Monro and St Peter's Tavern, The 1936 Pub Co announced on Thursday the 20th of March 2025 that "it had acquired the Pilgrim Street pub, a city centre stalwart since 1981 until it closed last summer, and will be re-opening it in April". They stated, "Our idea is only to creatively add, not to take anything away from the institution we all have come to know and love . So yeah, the booths, the brick, the mirrors, the beer garden, the cask ales and the tunes will all still be gloriously retained. Even those derelict vintage mini table juke boxes are staying but being augmented by a big new retro one that’ll sit in the corner by the iconic spiral staircase." You enter through a seated courtyard and down a spiral staircase into the cool subterranean dark of the bar itself making it a classic and unique pub that offers a cellar room with old-school charm, cask ale pumps, an upstairs courtyard for outdoor seating, and a welcoming atmosphere. Some visitors enjoy the historic feel of the place while others appreciate its music venue setup. The 1936 Pub Co also refurbished the upstairs bar of Pilgrim, which can still be accessed via the Pilgrim, and renamed it The Mayflower which has a touch of a nautical flavour in a subtle departure from the pub’s characteristic nostalgia-tinged interiors.They stated that "it will be a cosy, shamelessly nostalgic affair. You can expect a log burning fire and an abundance of cask ale choices, from local brewers."
see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2026/06/the-1936-pub-company-opened-queen-of.html
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