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Picture source: Bob Bates

The Horse & Groom was situated at 103 East Street. This pub closed c1970  and was infamous as a prostitute/gay pub and famous for a big stuffed brown bear in one of the bars.

Source: Paul Clark

Having stood since the 1780s this establishment known the world over by seafarers docking in Southampton, drawn no doubt by the type of lady who frequented it. Known as the Horse and Jockey until 1820 it was a fully licensed premise and certainly was not a drinking house for the faint hearted with fights, robberies with occasional murder common place. The murder was that of an American sailor who in 1959 was stabbed to death by one of his shipmates in the lounge bar. Ask anyone who ever visited the pub what they remember and to a man they will say the two large stuffed bears which stood in the lounge bar. Harry Batten a landlord introduced them in 1904 and they were still in place when the pub closed on 4th April 1973. Shortly afterwards it was demolished when the area was redeveloped.

Bob Bates (November 2013)

This was the first gay pub I went to in the mid-1960s when I was serving in the Women's Royal Naval Service in Lee-on-Solent. The Horse & Groom was extraordinary - it was a rough place that welcomed everyone - black seamen, queer people and so on - people who wouldn't have been welcomed in ordinary places as themselves. Many women dressed as men and had men's names; often their girlfriends worked as prostitutes. I can still feel the excitement of being able to be there as myself for two hours of the day and be with a girlfriend. I used to change my clothes in the car before I went in. In those days in the Navy, we wore pinky rings to identify ourselves as lesbians, You had to identify either as butch or femme - I swapped between those choices!

Vito Eileen Ward (October 2022)

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