11 and 12 Fore Street
What Three Words: ///roosters.
Watt’s Trading and Liddicoats occupy the premises of a pub called the Spotted Dog, though there is some confusion about its name. It was built as a coaching inn in 1785 by William Westlake of the Black Dog in Bridge Street. He named the new inn the Spotted Dog, leading locals to refer to the older pub as the Old Dog. Such hunting dogs were called Talbots, and the Spotted Dog was shortly given the new, more upmarket name of the Talbot Inn, by which it was known in 1789. It was a large inn with stables at the back, on South Street (then known as Cob Lane), and a coach house on the opposite side of Fore Street.
The original structure of a grand inn can be captured by looking at the upper floors and envisioning the ground floor bar and lounge separated by its central doorway. The Talbot Inn was certainly the most impressive inn in the town, surpassing the King’s Arms. It prospered from the growing coach trade under landlords William Cutley or Cutland, John Hawke, and James Roberts. It is visible in George Bell Lawrance’s painting of 1825.
Lawrance's painting of 1825, showing Talbot sign
When Lord Edgcumbe decided to build a new coaching inn in North Street, and to call it the Talbot Hotel, the Talbot Inn went into decline. In 1817, by which time it had come to be known informally as the Old Talbot, the Westlakes advertised for a new tenant. Failing to secure a future for the inn, it was put up for sale in 1837, the sale to include the house, granary, stables, coach house, courtyard, and brewery. The inn itself was converted into two houses, while the former coach house was demolished: the buildings now occupied by Alice in Scandiland, Cindy Ashbridge, jewellery, and Bassett’s solicitors were built on the site.
The ground floor of No. 12 Fore Street was used as a boot and shoe maker’s shop for around 120 years, from around 1841 to the 1870s. The shop was owned by the Tallings and the Jeffreys until the 1920s, when it was taken over by John Phillips. In 1960 it was taken over by Frances Pascal, who ran it as a grocery, greengrocery, and sweet shop until 2002.
Frances Pascal, 1960s
Its current owners, Denise and Tom Watts, took it over in that year and established Watts Trading as an emporium of environmentally sustainable hardware, household goods, cleaning products, food products, and toys.
No. 11 Fore Street was a private residence until the 1880s, when it became the Post Office, run by the Haddy family until the end of the century. It was then taken over by farmer and butcher Charles Liddicoat and has been a butcher’s shop for 120 years. The Liddicoats were there for more than 60 years and were followed by Charlie Harris and then Bill Perkins. The shop was taken over by Alastair Blaxley in 2004 and continues to run under its original name. It is very much a traditional butchers and sells the best pasties in Cornwall, prepared by Alastairs’ son Adam and labelled as ‘Adam’s Pasties’.
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