Pub sign Study The Two Tubs Bury Lancashire

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Bury’s oldest surviving building and one with a fun history. It was officially recognized in 1734 but undoubtedly predates that. I n the 1830’s, members of the highly eccentric Toasted Cheese Club (I’m not making this up) met regularly in the pub, then known as The Globe. They discovered that a rival bar, The Old White Bear, long since gone, was about to unveil a new pub sign, and decided to act quickly so as not to be outdone. In collaboration with their landlord, they sliced a wooden beer barrel in half, and pinned each half to the front of the pub painted as maps of the Earth’s two hemispheres thus maintaining their globe-map identity while creating a unique pictographic image at the same time. Two barrels, not the original ones, are now pinned up outside the pub at its gable end. The barrel related new name, The Two Tubs was probably introduced from 1830 though one book claims the new name was not introduced until 1990. This seems les likely. Arthur Chappell