Home > Lincolnshire > Grantham > Blue Man Blue Man
Date of photo: 2024	Picture source: Anthony Beaumont
The Blue Man was situated at 23 Westgate, on the corner with Welby Street. This pub is now used as an Indian restaurant. A grade-II listed building.
Listed building details:
C18. Two storeys and attics. Rough cast rendered. Modern concrete tiles. Three gabled dormers. Modern casement windows in segmental arches recesses, on blocked one small C19 string window on ground floor and one modern window.
From: Lincolnshire Heritage Explorer:
The former inn of 23 Westgate is thought to have been constructed during the early 18th century, possibly on the site of an earlier building. The pub’s original name is not known, but it is first recorded as the Blue Man Inn in a local newspaper article of November 1805, when Mary Rose and her son John Rose are listed as the operators at that time. Shortly prior to this, the local landowning Manners family had acquired a number of pubs, inns and hotels within Grantham and added the epithet ‘Blue’ to their names in reference to their allegiance to the Whig party. Sometime between the 1970s and 1990s, the pub’s name changed to The Malt Shovel, taking the historic name of a former public house a few doors away to the north along Westgate. The building remained in use as a pub until 2008, when it was soon afterwards converted to use as a restaurant. The building is arranged on a C-shaped plan, with the principal, earliest range fronting Westgate to the west. The two easternmost bays of the range alongside Welby Street have been separate properties since at least the 1880s, and numbered 1-2 Welby Street. This part of the building currently (2021) operates as a takeaway restaurant. All three ranges are of two storeys plus attics under pitched roofs. The building is fronted in painted render, probably over brick, with a roof covering of concrete tiles.
Do you have any anecdotes, historical information, updates or photos of this pub? Become a contributor by submitting them here. Like this site? Follow us on Make email contact with other ex-customers and landlords of this pub by adding your details to this page.