A Liverpool pub that became 'a legend among sailors all over the world' now lies empty and largely forgotten in the city centre.
The Nook pub on the corner of Griffiths Street and Nelson Street in Liverpool's Chinatown became famous world-wide when its name was spread by travelling businessmen and seaman in foreign ports during the city's maritime heyday.
Since 1940, it's also been known as the Chinese Local, a plaque attesting to the fact being fixed to its Nelson Street frontage and has been called 'Britain's only Chinese pub'.
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Although the presence of Chinese people in Liverpool dates back to 1834, it was in the 1860s Chinese immigrants first began to arrive as a result of Alfred Holt & Co, better known as the Blue Funnel shipping line, trading with the Far East and employing a large number of Chinese seamen.
Boarding houses were opened in the Pitt Street area, close to the docks, where the Chinese sailors could stay with fellow countrymen who spoke the same language.
In the May Blitz of 1941, German bombs took a terrible toll on Chinatown, destroying Pitt Street, Cleveland Square and Fredrick Street. This made the Chinese community move further inland to Nelson Street, Great George Street, Upper Parliament Street, Duke Street and Berry Street – areas of the city we associate as Chinatown today.
During Liverpool’s height as a trading port, The Nook became a meeting place for seafarers and a hub for the local Chinese community.
However, it didn't just cater for the Chinese sailors and the Chinese community, The Nook was a pub with a cosmopolitan reputation where sailors from all over the world would rub shoulders with its regular patrons.
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From the 1945 to 1974, The Nook was run by an Irish landlady called Eileen Jones – one of the city's most respected and well known licensees.
She was known for having an astonishing collection of wide-brimmed hats, and wore a different one each night – a fashion choice more likely to be spotted at Ascot than serving behind a bar.
In 1967, Eileen Jones was also crowned 'Queen of Chinatown' by the Liverpool Press Club. Originally from County Cork, she arrived in Liverpool in 1930 with her husband and they originally owned a pub on Pitt Street.
In a story on the dwindling population of Chinatown compared to its pre-war heyday published in the Liverpool Echo in 1974, the legendary landlady is quoted to have said: "For me it exists as much as ever. My place is their only meeting place. It is home from home for so many and always will be."
When she died later that year her funeral, attended by over 200 mourners, also made the ECHO underneath the headline: "Chinatown's 'Queen' dies'.
The Nook passed into the hands of her son, Colman Fitzgerald, who carried on the pub's tradition of calling time in both English and Cantonese.
In a review of the pub in 1974, The Nook was described as :"[A] sailors' pub which numbers among its regulars seamen from all over the world, but especially Chinese sailors, and the local Chinese community. If you call in, you will find the customers not only scrutable but downright friendly. The decor is Eastern, with willow-pattern type motifs on table-tops, walls and lanterns, but the atmosphere is Scouse."
After being in the same family for 40-years, the keys of the pub were handed over to new management in 1985.
The pub's sad decline was documented in another review in the Liverpool Echo in 2008, when it was reported as recently looking like an "abandoned bomb shelter." But was still "a lovable place full of character and characters."
Following a face-lift of the pub, the same review went on to describe how the portrait of The Nook's most famous landlady "the feisty Mrs Jones" had now gone, while the "gigantic global map showing the old shipping trade routes of yore has also gone, crumbling to bits during the renovation."
After having its license suspended in 2009 when counterfeit cigarettes and vodka were found on the premises, the once globally renowned and most cosmopolitan of Liverpool's pubs closed its doors.
In 2014, there were plans to convert the now derelict and boarded up building into a living museum in Nelson Street. The plans involved creating a place for people to wander in and tell their story, adding to the archive of the oldest Chinese community in Europe.
Unfortunately, the plans have not yet come to fruition and The Nook lies empty. A sad elegy to a once legendary pub whose welcoming reputation crossed oceans.
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