12 Bull and Mouth formerly no. 55 Terrace Road, now the western half of the shop forming the new Ceredigion Museum entrance and Tourist Information Centre.

Description

This pub is the earliest recorded in Terrace Road. It dates back to the late 1820s, when Terrace Road was little more than a few houses connecting Marine Terrace, Portland Street and North Parade.
Morgan Jones was the first recorded licensee but by 1840 he had been succeeded by Ann James. The next licensee was Francis Careswell who was in debt to the tune of £293 17s. Id in 1847. He was made bankrupt and the papers of his case survive, including a list of the valuations of all his possessions, including his underpants. He estimated that the profits from the pub were about £20 a year, but he was spending £14 a year on rent; nearly £8 on taxes and rates; £7.6.2¾ on the public house licence; £7.10s on servants wages, £12 on coal, £14 on his children’s education, £20 on clothing; £9 on shoes; £5 on repairing and painting the pub and £91 a year on other household expenses which add up to £180 a year. To help cover the difference, he worked as a waiter at the Belle Vue Hotel but he made only £35 a year for this work.
He had already been forced to sell some of his furniture to pay debts, and had £70 worth of unsold ale, spirits and porter in his store. He was owed £77 by customers whom he allowed to keep a ‘tab’ of debts for drinks and accommodation, some of whom had left town without paying. At the time of his bankruptcy, he was allowed to keep a minimum of £20 worth of furniture and £20 worth of family clothes.
It is possible that the Bull and Mouth closed , at least for a while, but there may simply be a gap in the records. Various sources dated 1865 and later show that there was a public house called the Bull and Mouth in Terrace Road, but located at no. 37 (formerly no. 11). This is where Richard Williams opened the old established house, the Bull and Mouth on the 23rd December, 1865; it was where the Temple of Love Lodge of the Odd Fellows had their first meeting in 1866, and where there was an inquest into the death of David Jenkins, the landlord, who fell or jumped out of a window when drunk in 1868.
Although the reference to the ‘old established house’ in 1865 and the under-lease of no 53 in 1869 clearly stated that it was adjacent to the Bull and Mouth, two adverts, dated 1865 and 1868 give the address as no. 37 and an advert in 1868 gives John Evans’ name as a Lodging House Keeper of no. 55. Another piece of evidence which supports the continued location of the Bull and Mouth at no. 55 is that the landlord’s licence was transferred from Richard Williams who re-opened the pub in 1865, to J. H. Davies, possibly the chemist who lived next door at no. 53. Richard Williams died in 1870, aged 85. There are several later references to the Bull and Mouth, for example, Rees Rees was landlord in 1870 and 1871, but none state the address. However, In 1872, Alfred Worthington, who had sub-leased the property from Elizabeth Edwards, applied for a licence for a house in Terrace Road, formerly known as the Bull and Mouth, but which was not now used as a public-house. The report of this application states that Worthington had no intention to use the licence, but applied for one to increase the value of the house. There is no evidence that the property was ever used as a public house again.