Another Sam Smith’s pub has closed without warning.
Its pub on Nunnery Lane, the Trafalgar Bay, shut without notice and now the brewery is advertising for new tenants.
YorkMix understands that the York pub has been closed since at least the end of October.
A note in one of the ground floor windows simply states: “Closed until further notice”.
No explanation has been forthcoming from the brewery but YorkMix now understands the previous tenants may have left due to illness.
Brewery has form
This is not an unprecedented occurrence for a Samel Smith’s pub.
The Tadcaster brewer has previously closed the Wellington Inn on Alma Terrace and the Crystal Palace on Holgate Road without explanation.
They then reopened under new management.
Sam Smith’s does not comment on its pubs, or anything else. But they have posted a job ad on Gumtree which reads:
Trafalgar Bay: Live-in joint management couple (preferably local) to run well maintained character pub with several separate trading rooms and garden.
The ad was posted on October 19 and the deadline is December 18.
Name theories
There is some dispute as to how Trafalgar Bay got its name.
According to A Directory Of York Pubs by Hugh Murray, it is first mentioned in a city directory of 1834, 29 years after the sea battle which cost Lord Nelson his life.
But, as the map on the pub sign shows, Trafalgar is a headland and not a bay.
Another theory is that it was actually named after a bay horse called Trafalgar, which won two high-prize races at York in 1807.
The pub was previously owned by long-gone York brewer JJ Hunt.