The Pump and Truncheon has a magnificently dark golden feel to it. It resides opposite Blackpool police station; the station itself happens to be a gross eyesore but I will forget about that for the purposes of this story. It is the public house opposite that interests us here.
When one turns to the bar to order a pint of proper beer, there is an impressive array of county police shields above the bar. The law and order theme runs deep: the whole public house parodies a gaol-cum-courtroom. The layout is exceptional. There are hand-painted wooden signs that point the way to Ladies and Gents cells, viz., toilets. This kind of humorous theme really does run throughout. Photographs might be found at
myPUBGUIDE.com.
It is not the remarkable interior of this establishment that earns the Pump and Truncheon a place on
GhostPubs.com. Rather, it is the rumour that kangaroo court hearings have, arguably within living memory, been held in this very public house. I did not stop to ask the landlord at the time about the authenticity of such claims. I leave this to the reader. Instead of asking the landlord, I was far too busy enjoying the three hand-pumps of real ale at the bar to crack any real conversation. Anyway, I was enlightened to a particular tale by a couple outside the Doctor Who museum on the Promenade, who claimed that kangaroo court beatings were so severe that one Scottish victim took his life in terror. The sufferer is said to still haunt the building.
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