Last year Jan and I went to the Railway Tavern in Prestonpans High Street for the first time. We have lived in the Pans for more than 20 years, but we didn’t used to be very brave about going to new places.
The pub is, of course, perfectly fine. Maybe they don’t get many new people in because staff and punters were quite sweary with each other, but that’s no bother to us. The lease is up for sale and so could well be under new management by the time you read this.
Anyway, I have been curious about a couple of things for a while now:
- Why is it called the Railway Tavern when it is so far from the railway?
- Why does it have battlements?
Well, I’ve made some progress on answering these questions. The image below is from the National Library of Scotland side by side historical map page for Prestonpans dated 1840-1880, scale six inches to the mile (link here)
It looks like Hamilton House was called the North British Railway Tavern some time back in the C19, when it would have been handy for the new railway station (called Tranent Station at the time).
I don’t have any proof yet, but I wonder if the name, staff and clientele of the North British Railway Tavern moved downhill to the current Railway Tavern location when Hamilton House became a private residence once more. And they dropped the North British bit because they no longer had a relationship with the North British Railway Company, or just thought it wasn’t needed.
And the battlements? Another old map shows the High Street building as barracks, so now that makes sense. By coincidence Hamilton House was used for that purpose as well at some point.