Memory Lane
White Bull, Ribchester
This picture, from the collection of Margery Wordsworth, is of the White Bull, Ribchester.
The present pub building dates from 1707 and at one time was used as the village courthouse. The pillars that support the front porch are believed to be Roman in origin. The wooden bull sign was made at the wheelwright's on the corner of Greenside and Blackburn road (now a joiner's workshop), although the original bull has been replaced. A small mound in front of the pub, where the car park now is, was known as the "hillock", and was the traditional focal point of parades and celebrations in the village.
Standing, as it does, at an important junction, there may well have been a hostelry on this site since much earlier times. The Roman roads to Lancaster, Hadrian's Wall and York converged here, just outside the north-east corner of the Roman fort, and there are the remains of a Roman bathhouse behind the pub. Could there have been a "Taurus Albus" here?
Colin Hinkley, Ribchester Local History Society
This article was first published in the Memory Lane column of the Longridge News and is reproduced here with permission.