Ye Olde Bull Inn, Llanbedr
Ye Olde Bull Inn, Llanbedr-y-cennin
This country pub dates from the late 17th century or early 18th. It may have replaced an even earlier hostelry on the site. The road which climbs past it was used by drovers to take livestock from the mountains to markets further east. The name is thought to relate to the bullocks which hauled carts over the upland tracks. Some were kept at a farm a little further uphill from the pub.
Previously the pub’s interior was divided into several rooms. The long bar now runs across where there were once partitions.
The landlord, Joseph Jones, was taken to court in December 1903 on the bizarre charge of harbouring policemen. Superintendent W Rees had caught two of his constables having a supper of bread, cheese and beer at the Bull Inn after 10pm closing time on fair day. Mr Jones explained that the officers usually called for their supper before 10pm but on that day the pub was so full they couldn’t be served earlier. The charge was dismissed but the chief constable “reduced” both constables.
The fields behind the Bull Inn hosted annual sheepdog trials on New Year’s Day. Competitors came from as far away as Cumbria and North Yorkshire, until entries grew so large that the competition was restricted, in 1905, to North Wales. Contestants and spectators would repair to the Bull Inn for the awards presentations, speeches and a dinner. In the 1904 trials, a “remarkably clever old dog” called Laddie, from Sedbergh, Yorkshire, was first in Class 1, while a dog belonging to William Jones of Plas Nant, Llangwm, won Class 2 (for dogs which had never won prizes previously). A special prize for the quickest penning went to Jolly, owned by J Rowlands of Gelli Ucha, Bala.
New Year’s Day 1907 was a less happy occasion for the inn’s landlord. In the small hours, “miscreants” beheaded half-a-dozen fowls at the Bull Inn and smashed one of the windows, then broke all of the front windows of the Church House opposite.
Postcode: LL32 8JB View Location Map