Editing St Ives, Cambridgeshire (section)

==Public houses==
[[File:Market stalls in front of the Golden Lion Hotel, St Ives - geograph.org.uk - 310810.jpg|thumb|right|The Golden Lion, a former coaching inn]]
As an important market town, St Ives always needed large numbers of public houses, many of which were [[brothel|bawdy houses]]: 64 in 1838 (1 for every 55 inhabitants), 60 in 1861, 48 in 1865 and 45 in 1899, although only five of these made the owners a living. As livestock sales diminished, however, so did the need for large numbers of pubs, falling to a low point of 16 in 1962. In that year the Seven Wives on Ramsey Road was opened. The oldest name is the Dolphin; in use on the same site for over 300 years, its current usage is for a hotel built in 1985. Next oldest is the White Hart, which is pre-1720. Nelson's Head and Golden Lion are at least as old but have not kept the same name: they used to be called the Three Tuns and the Red Lion respectively. There has been a pub on the site of the Robin Hood from a similar date; in fact it was originally two separate pubs: the Angel and the Swan. A pub under the name ''Swan and Angel'' was opened by J D Wetherspoon.<ref name = wetherspoons>''Swan and Angel, St Ives'', https://www.jdwetherspoon.com/pubs/the-swan-angel-st-ives/ retrieved 16 May 2025</ref> The claim of the Royal Oak to date from 1502 cannot be proven since, while a portion at the back is 17th-century (making it physically the oldest portion of any pub in St Ives), the pub name is more recent. The reference is to [[Charles II of England|Charles II]]'s famous escape from [[Oliver Cromwell|Cromwell]]'s [[Roundheads]], and Charles was restored to the throne in 1660.<ref>{{citation|title=The Pubs of St Ives|first=Bob|last=Burn-Murdoch|edition=3rd|publisher=Friends of the Norris Museum|date=16 October 2008}}</ref>

The Golden Lion was a 19th-century [[coaching inn]].<ref name=fisher>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YWyrAAAAQBAJ&q=%22Golden+Lion%22&pg=PA151 |title=British River Navigations: Inland Cuts, Fens, Dikes, Channels and Non-tidal Rivers |publisher=A&C Black |first=Stuart |last=Fisher |year=2013 |page=151 |access-date=29 July 2014|isbn=9781472906687 }}</ref> ''The Official Guide to the Great Eastern Railway'' referred to it in 1893 as one of two "leading hotels" in St Ives<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6MJRAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA271 |title=The Official Guide to the Great Eastern Railway |publisher=Cassell |author=Great Eastern Railway |year=1893 |page=271 |access-date=29 July 2014}}</ref> and there are a number of ghost stories associated with the pub.<ref name=fisher/><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EH-IAwAAQBAJ&q=%22Golden+Lion%22&pg=PT53 |title=Paranormal Cambridgeshire |publisher=Amberley Publishing Limited |first=Damien |last=O'Dell |year=2013 |page=53 |access-date=29 July 2014|isbn=9781445629940 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KkqIAwAAQBAJ&q=%22Golden+Lion%22&pg=PT69 |title=Military Ghosts |publisher=Amberley Publishing Limited |first=Alan |last=Wood |year=2013 |page=69 |access-date=29 July 2014|isbn=9781445625225 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a-nWAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Golden+Lion%22++%22St+Ives%22 |title=The International Directory of Haunted Places |publisher=Penguin Group |author=Dennis William Hauck |year=2000 |page=18 |access-date=29 July 2014|isbn=9780140296358 }}</ref>