"The Bell originally served as a refectory of the Carmelite monastery then sited on Beastmarket Hill, just below St James Street Junction.
Henry VIII closed small monasteries in 1536, and then it became a secular alehouse, taking it's name from the Angelus bell (Latin word meaning 'the noon-day bell') that hung outside the monks? refectory.
First mention in city archives in 1638.
In 1898 the Jackson family acquired the Bell Inn.
In 1928 Robert Jackson introduced 'snack-type' meals, presumably to feed the workers building the Council House!
In 1957 Jackson started a tradition (first Wednesday in November), which will hopefully continue now that Hardys & Hansons have acquired the pub, namely the Presentation of the Presidents tankard ' an engraved silver tankard is presented to the President of the Nottingham University Student's Union (the real one, not the old Poly!). Two roasted pigs, are served to customers with stuffing, bread, and apple sauce.
In 1960 The Bell was the first to introduce 'tanked beer' into the city.
In 1976 the curator of Nottm's Castle Museum dated the building's 'crown post roof' as being between 1400 and 1450.
In Edwardian times the Bell sold its famous 'market dinners' a two course meal (including a cut of a meat-joint; a variety of cheeses, and a pint of Nottingham Ale) which were prepared in the basement kitchen and carried up to the 'Lizzy Bar' (Elizabethan Bar first bar on the right), and then upstairs to what we now know as the Belfry bar, then known as the 'clubroom'. Cost, one shilling!
The Bell stands on the old boundary line of two parishes: St Nicolas and St James.
William Clarke (cricketer) once owned the pub, before the Jackson family. He was also married to the then widow of the licensee of the 'Trent Bridge Inn'.
The cellars are Norman.
The flagstones in the main entrance passageway are original.
The pub was men only until 1969, when the pub went mixed."
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