The former Bricklayers' Arms. Until some time in the 1880s the address was given as 20 Gloucester Street. As it was not marked on Ordnance Survey maps it may well have been a beer-shop at that time, rather than a public house. It had ceased to be a pub by 1923. Recently the premises was Hussain Grocers; at time of writing the building is being gutted for redevelopment. The landlord in 1888 was William Cook.
At 11.00pm on Saturday 29 September 1888, labourers John Gardner and J. Best saw prostitute Elizabeth Stride at the entrance to the pub, leaving with a man, presumably a client. This was the first of a number of sightings of Stride with a man before her dead body was found two hours later in the gateway to Dutfield's Yard on Berner Street (now Henriques Street), to the south of Commercial Road.
This pub was present here as the Bricklayers Arms at least by 1802 when Samuel Barnard was victualler and took out an insurance policy with the Sun Fire Office.
The pub is mentioned in an 1829 Old Bailey court case (the proceedings of which can be read on the Old Bailey website). John Cousins, who lived opposite the pub in what was then called Gloucester Street, apprehended William Tucker (described as 'appearing to be a bone gatherer') in the street and found in his basket two pewter pots, worth two shillings and bearing the name and mark of Bricklayers Arms guv'nor Evan Price. Price testified that he had lost five dozen pewter pots between Christmas and the case coming to court on 9 April. Tucker was found guilty of theft and sentenced to transportation for seven years.[1]
The Bricklayers Arms remained a pub until at least 1911, when Arthur Phillips was listed in the Post Office Directory as being the licensee.