Lost Pubs Of Newcastle: The Grapes Vaults on Grey Street was the last pub in the city centre to serve men only. It had continued to do so in defiance of the Sex Discrimination Act, hoping females would be discouraged by the absence of any toilet facilities for them.
The Grapes would have been one of Newcastle’s oldest pubs had it still been around today, it was older than Grey Street itself. The building was part of an earlier development by Richard Grainger between Blackett Street and High Friar Lane, the alley to the right of it in the photos. It was completed in 1830, four years before he began building Grey Street.
The interior of this tiny pub remained pretty much untouched over the years, and had some nice oak furniture produced by Robert Thompson’s company in Yorkshire. He was known as ‘Mousey Thompson’ because he and his workmen carved small mice on their pieces as a trademark, which are worth a fortune today. Apart from that it was basic in every sense, with no jukebox, no fruit machines and no dartboard; nothing to distract a man from his beer.
There used to be lots of these “gadgie bars” in Newcastle, whose clientele was mostly men drinking with their workmates. This may well have bored women into going elsewhere, but they weren’t usually barred from them. However, regulars at the Grapes would have had their working class machismo dented if they’d known it appeared on lists of gay pubs; and it was men from the Gay Liberation Front who first challenged the no-women rule in the summer of 1973.
They arrived one evening with members of the Women’s Action Group, who were refused service at the bar, so their male accomplices bought them pints. They lasted half an hour before the police were called and threw them out of the pub. There were further organised attempts by women’s groups to buy drinks in the Grapes when the Sex Discrimination Act was passed in 1975, with mixed results. With the Grapes now on the wrong side of the law, the only defence for this bastion of manliness was its lack of a ladies’ toilet. The pub was too small to install one.
The last pint was pulled at the Grapes Vaults on Saturday, January 26th 1980, but the closure had nothing to do with women or toilets. Its owners, Scottish & Newcastle, had been unable to renew the lease, and the pub was converted into a women’s clothes shop called Studio 54.