The Bambridge Hotel once stood on the corner of Waring Street and Sugarhouse Entry, Belfast. It occupied the site of a historic old tavern, which gave its name to today's nearby Michelin starred restaurant The Muddler's Club.
In the 1790s, the venue was the Dr. Franklin Tavern but known as Peggy’s Inn after the owner Peggy Barclay. The tavern became a meeting place for Henry Joy McCracken and the United Irishmen who met in secret under the guise of The Muddler’s Club.
Belfast Telegraph Photo: AR 161. Destruction of buildings in Sugarhouse Entry, Belfast. These famous entries in the city are where Henry Joy McCracken and the United Irishmen met in 1798.
In 1798, a Mr. Michael Fallon took ownership of the Sugarhouse Entry premises. As well as its use by the United Irishmen, a later incarnation of the premises would become a favourite with Scottish and English soldiers who referred to it as ‘Nugent’s Den’ after the Royalist Commander In Chief.
By the mid-1800s, the site had become the Bambridge Hotel, owned for a time by Mr. Hugh Rafferty. The Belfast Street Directories list the premises as not only a hotel but also Billiard Rooms and an Oyster House. In 1903, the Northern Whig Newspaper based not far from the hotel published an article decrying the development of modern Belfast.
High Street has already been largely re-made, and the process of replacing the ancient by the modern is rapidly being extended to the entries and alleys each side of that thoroughfare. When, some twelve years ago, the Bambridge Hotel in Sugarhouse Entry was rebuilt, one of the best known, if not one of the most ancient, of the “wynne” buildings lost its sympathy with the past.
By 1905, the Rafferty family had parted from the hotel and Miss. Rafferty was the proprietor of a new establishment in Glenarm, Co. Down. In later years, the Bambridge Hotel was owned by the McGlade family. They owned many premises in the city including the Hercules Bar, The Queen’s Café, The Tower Buildings, and the Grand Metropole Hotel.
The Bambridge Hotel remained operating under this name until Sugarhouse Entry fell victim to Luftwaffe bombs in the Belfast Blitz. The buildings on Sugarhouse Entry were never rebuilt and the Bambridge Hotel never reopened. During the modern Troubles in Northern Ireland, authorities closed off access to the entry.