Some pubs in Liverpool city centre just feel like they've been around forever.
Standing in the long shadow of the Anglican Cathedral, The Pilgrim is one such place. Perhaps because of its location on one of the city's last remaining cobbled streets, its subterranean location suggests there's long roots running deep under those stones.
The Pilgrim takes its name from the street where it stands. Pilgrim Street (originally Jamieson Street) was renamed after The Pilgrim pirate ship which once brought its business to Liverpool's docks.
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The Pilgrim is one of the triumvirate of city centre pubs that belongs to the same people who own The Swan on Wood Street, and Ye Cracke on Rice Street. Unlike its sister pubs who can trace their roots in Victorian times, The Pilgrim is the new kid on the block, relatively speaking.
The pub as we have come to know it only materialised in the early 1980s. Before then it was an art gallery, and in the 1960s it was a warehouse for storing paint.
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Newspaper reports indicate it was also a chocolate factory between its life as the home of Johnstone's Paints and the art gallery. In a Liverpool Echo article on November 27, 1978, it said: "After 18 months as a building site the transformation of 34 Pilgrim Street from disused chocolate factory for a permanent home for Liverpool Academy of Art is complete."
But it's walking up to the pub from the old street when you get the sense that The Pilgrim is just a bit different. You enter through a seated courtyard and down a spiral staircase into the cool subterranean dark of the bar itself.
Seating inside consists of one long wooden table flanked on either side by a row of wooden booths perfect for intimate drinking. The main drinking area is below street level; the exposed brickwork of the walls and bar also adds to its air as an establishment of some vintage.
Lining the walls are mirrors with images of the Fab Four and 1950s style penny jukeboxes (sadly not working). But The Pilgrim does have a main, rock orientated jukebox much like The Swan.
For beautiful, historic images from the past have a look at memorylane.co.uk/ and see what you can discover
In fact, when The Swan was closed for major renovation work in the early noughties, upstairs in The Pilgrim's function room became The Swan's temporary home complete with legendary jukebox. Despite its relative youth on the traditional pub scene, The Pilgrim has seen some eccentric moments.
In the 1980s, then landlady Joan Radcliffe was a big fan of Christmas. So-much-so, she staged a second Christmas and New Year celebrations for customers during the summer, complete with Christmas dinner.
With its close associations to the arts, hosting poetry and comedy evenings as well as theatre productions down the years, these days the pub still has a reputation for catering for "arty" types. Its popularity with students of all disciplines is also long established - perhaps because of its close proximity to the city's college and university buildings, but also for its reputation selling cheap drinks and an established triples bar.
Does The Pilgrim awaken any memories for you? Let us know in the comments section below.
So while not as old as its Georgian surroundings might suggest, The Pilgrim has certainly established itself as one of the best, and cheapest, places to start a night out in the city. Cheers!
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