The Swatter's Carr

This has been a public house for more than a century. Mostly, the three-storey building (which extends along Victoria Road) was the Empire (not to be confused with the nearby Empire Theatre-now a nightclub). The Empire was originally named the Empire Hotel. The building is recorded in the 1891 census as the Swatters Carr Hotel Public House - Swatters (or Swathers) Carr after the isolated farmhouse, first recorded on the map dated 1618.