Stone Street / New Road

Gravesend

Above photo, circa 1874, showing the Nelson Tap. Kindly supplied by John Hopperton.

Above photo, date unknown, showing the "Nelson Tap" which I am informed is a different premises to the "Nelson Inn." Kindly supplied by Jason Kemsley. I am hoping this is also the "Nelson Shades."

Here's one that is definitely the Nelson Hotel Shades, and looks different still from the top photo.

The Closed Pubs projects names this one the "Nelson Shades" and located at the junction between Stone Street and New Road from between 1896 and 1983.  The information being supplied by Tom Baines.

Michael Norman says the following:- "As far as I can work out the 1876 building occupies the hole of the south side of New Road between Windmill Street and Stone Street. The previous Nelson Inn had stood on the corner of Windmill Street and New Road, and the Nelson Tap on the corner of Stone Street and New Road, but there may or may not have been other buildings between the two demolished hostelries. That's my version of events anyway!

It is suggested that the old "Nelson Tap" was demolished at about the same time as the old hotel. The rebuilt "Nelson" was designed to incorporate a drinking area for non-residents as the owners wouldn't have wanted to miss out on this revenue source, but to protect the sensibilities of their guests they were careful to ensure that it was separately identifiable from the hotel itself - hence the plainer decor and two storeys rather than three, thus maintaining the usual saloon bar/public bar distinction that survived for most of the 20th century. It may have had separate management at that early stage. Over the years between the rebuild (1876) and closure (1983) this distinction became blurred - probably in several stages, including the provision of (public) access to the Shades from the main area of the hotel - until by the 1970s there was little to suggest that the Tap/Shades had ever had a separate identity.

The "Nelson Tap" did not exist with that name by the 1970s. There was a pub element to the "Nelson Hotel," which one could enter from Stone Street or via the hotel bar, but it was by that time just known as the "Nelson."

Most people would have used the hotel bar which extended into the Tap part after one of the many internal refurbishments.

LICENSEE LIST

HOOPER Thomas 1901-22+ (age 42 in 1901)

http://www.closedpubs.co.uk/nelsonshades.html