What Three Words: ///coaster.angry.stocked
OS Grid Reference: SX103598
Now private housing, and previously a road house and tourist stop-off, the Talbot was a successor to the town’s major coaching inn of the 18th century.
An old-established pub was run by the local Talbot family at the bridge end of North Street under the sign of a Black Dog. The pub sign alluded to the hunting dogs ― also called Talbots ― used by the earls and dukes of Cornwall in their Deer Park. The pub was variously known as Talbot’s, The Dog, or the Black Dog. In 1785 a new, larger inn was built in Fore Street and traded under the sign of the Spotted Dog, the original pub then becoming known as the Old Dog. The new inn hoped to capture the growing coaching trade and adopted the official name of the Talbot Inn in 1789. The Talbot Inn traded succesfully for some years, but the growth of the coaching business encouraged Lord Edgcumbe to finance a new and much larger hotel at the top of North Street, which had by then come to be seen as a part of the Great South Western Road from London. This opened in 1817 under the name of the Talbot Hotel and the two Talbots competed for some years, though the Talbot Inn eventually fell to the success of Lord Edgcumbe's Hotel. The Fore Street inn closed by 1841 and the building was converted into shops (now Liddicoats the butchers and Watts Trading). The earliest Talbot also closed down in the 19th century.
The new Talbot Hotel at the top of North Street (illustrated below) was far more substantial than its predecessor. Located opposite the entrance to Taprell House, it was the principal coaching inn of the town, providing refreshment stops and a change of horses for the long-distance coaches. In the nineteenth century heyday of coaching, Lostwithiel was on the principal route from Penzance to London, and the Talbot also served coaches running from Penzance and Falmouth to Torpoint and Devonport. The Hotel had massive cellars and extensive stabling on its north side.
The first tenant of the Talbot Hotel was Thomas Cory, formerly the landlord of the Town Arms. Mr Cory moved to open a pub in Barnstaple in 1835, and the tenancy was acquired by William Tabb. It then became known as Tabb’s Talbot Hotel but, following the royal visit of 1846, Mr Tabb renamed it as The Royal Talbot, though Queen Victoria had not visited the hotel and described her time in Lostwithiel merely as ‘passing through’ the town. There is a local myth that a passing royal had seduced the landlord’s daughter and was persuaded to allow the hotel to use the ‘Royal’ branding. This, however, lacks any evidence. A later tenant in the 1890s sought to further enhance the image of the hotel by appropriating the crest of the Earl of Shrewsbury for his writing paper. The Earl’s family name was Talbot, but he had no connection at all with the town.
North Street, and the medieval bridge at its end, formed the main road through the town, and an increase in motor traffic in the 20th Century led to demands for a by-pass. Cornwall County Council drew up plans for a new road that would run from the top of Grenville Road, over a new railway bridge and then curve through Hick’s Moor to join Queen Street and become the A390. This route (shown in pink on the map below) required the demolition of the Royal Talbot and the new road was built across the stabling to leave the large grassed area at the top of North Street. At the same time, the A390 was widened at the far end of Queen Street, requiring further demolition of houses. Only the gable end of the hotel remains, still visible, as an essential support to the adjoining house.
A new Royal Talbot was built on the opposite side of the A390, built in the 1930s road-house style. This continued as a public house until declining trade saw its closure in 2013 and its conversion into flats. The apartment block retains the name Royal Talbot above its main entrance.