Raven wings in with oldest pub claim WELL now, I'm still waiting for solid evidence concerning the name of the oldest pub still in business within the St Helens borough boundaries.

It springs from a yedscratter posed by a customer of this column a week or two ago. And though there has been some lively response, dispute still rages around the taprooms as to which of the watering holes holds the title.

The Raven Lodge (formerly Royal Raven) at the top end of Church Street, emerges as a narrow favourite in the longevity stakes. But others among our dedicated arm-benders have plumped for the Ship Inn at Blackbrook and the Black Horse, Moss Bank, as likely outsiders.

I'm extremely grateful to those helpful readers who forwarded pub lists from way-back. But these merely showed that they were registered with the licensing authorities at a certain point in time. What's really required is evidence as to when the pubs were actually established.

I'm inclined to go along with the Raven supporters myself, as the hotel was once used as an occasional courthouse and lock-up before the turn of the century. And I do know (and have previously reported) that Lord Gerard and his house guest, Napoleon III of France, once got legless in the Raven after a hectic pub-crawl around St Helens, which has to have been a century and a quarter ago!

I'M now hoping that Brian Tarry, Rainford author and avid researcher into such frothy subjects (or some other local historian) can dig out the definitive answer.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.