Boat Inn, Nottingham

The Boat Inn takes its name from the craft plying the Nottingham Canal and the River Leen and for whose crews the pub provided refreshment (Whitworth 2010). The building is a 1923 rebuild of an earlier 19th century beerhouse of the same name, which first appears in the early 1830s. The original building was the scene of a tragic fire in 1838, in which Elizabeth Widdison, the wife of landlord, sadly died. Mrs Widdison had been mentally unwell for some 30 years previously and was kept locked in an attic room. The inquest into her death was held at the nearby White Hart. At one time the pub was famous for brewing its own beer but the landlord's drawing of brewing water from a well next to the cemetery wall was forbidden in 1877 on hygiene grounds when Lenton became part of the City. The quality of the beer fell and the Boat was bought by the Basford brewer, WH Hutchinson & Son in 1884. Hutchinson's was acquired in 1916 by Home Brewery. The Boat remained a beerhouse until the late 1940s when it acquired a full licence (Lenton Times, Issue 6 1991).

Asset of Community Value listing 10th March 2016, nominated by the Nottingham Branch of CAMRA.

The Boat Inn has an entry on the Nottingham Local Heritage List as Heritage Asset HA356 (and formerly Nottingham Civic Society's Draft Local Heritage List (09 December 2013)) which notes construction in 1922-23 to a design by WB Starr & Hall and its "Faience front and Home Ales livery".

As at November 2017, the freehold for the Boat Inn (NT249667) was held by TRUST INNS LIMITED (Reg. No. 3011034).

[City of Nottingham, Dunkirk & Lenton Ward / Nottingham South Parliamentary Constituency]