Further to the recent discussion about the Gardener's I was party to an argument in the Grapes yesterday regarding the Tankerville Arms. Know where it was and all that, and have viewed the pics on here, but the questions I have been asked to find the answers for are a) when did it finally close and when was it knocked down/destroyed?

Hoping there are some kindly folk with good memories!

My grandparents lived at Doctor terrace opposite the Tankerville Arms they and their friends used to drink there nearly every night. The landlord and landlady where called Mr & Mrs Exton I remember they had names for different rooms and used to talk about the Blue room which had blue wallpaper. It could have been to widen the road in the 60s I can remember seeing it being knocked down and fires burning around it during the night. A very popular pub.

My grandparents lived at Doctor terrace opposite the Tankerville Arms they and their friends used to drink there nearly every night. The landlord and landlady where called Mr & Mrs Exton I remember they had names for different rooms and used to talk about the Blue room which had blue wallpaper. It could have been to widen the road in the 60s I can remember seeing it being knocked down and fires burning around it during the night. A very popular pub.

I wonder if they were the same Extons that were in the Railway Tavern during the 1970's

Keith - I think you might be correct with that memory. I was briefly pals with the publican's son (can't think of his name at the moment) when they had the pub on Glebe Rd and they did take-over the Railway down at Bedlington Station. Mid to late 60s. The pub on Glebe I recall was painted a dark green colour and had lots of painted wood panelling (more green) inside ... I'm pretty sure about the colour or it could have been the effects of dodgy weed. Weed wasn't that commonly available in Bedders then and most that did get in was well past it's use by date

I can remember them in the Railway but I am to young to have known them in the Tankerville. Can't say that I remember a son but they did have a daughter, Florence, who worked in the pub........ The only thing i really know about the Tankerville , is that I used to work for the Earl of Tankerville at Chillingham [with the wild cattle among other things] The pubs that are named after them are far more interesting than the family. The dowager Lady Tankerville had. to be the most eccentric woman I have ever known. There were certainly a few disorientated bats in her loft to say the least.

On the subject of pubs. are the dun coo and the black bull operating at the moment, my Uncle Fred Gibbon was landlord of the black bull for a years we we had good times there.