Anyone who has spent time on Byres Road will recognise the black and gold façade of Tennent’s Bar on the busy corner of Byres and Highburgh Roads. While pubs, restaurants, and cafes come and go in the West End, Tennent’s is one of the stalwarts.
The interior, a cavernous space with booths around the edges and raised tables in the middle, bears reminders of the pub’s nineteenth century foundation: the columns with gold, flowery capitals in the centre of the bar, high ceilings with elaborate moldings and decorative motifs, and the paintings of 1800s Glasgow scenes and dour-faced Victorians.
Modernity has also found its way into the bar, with televisions for viewing sport, or the news (depending on the time of day), and of course, free WiFi.
Tennent’s has been a Byers Road institution for more than a century. It was opened in 1891 by Hugh Tennent, a local wine and spirit merchant, but not without controversy.
The Principal of the University of Glasgow, John Caird, railed against “the demon drink,” and along with other professors, he strenuously opposed granting Tennent a license for premises dangerously close to the university.
In an 1887 petition to the Lanarkshire Licensing Court, the university argued that its gymnasium “faced Ashton Terrace, and Ashton Terrace was in direct line with the public house. The College authorities were apprehensive that it might be a temptation to the students when going home fatigued in the evening after their exercise in the gymnasium.” The Licensing Court had a less puritanical view.
Tennent soon sold the place to Bass Brewers in 1894, probably a good thing for the pub in the long run, as his whole estate plummeted into a court case after he died in 1919.
His son, George Beaconsfield Tennent, had inherited the pubs and other businesses his father had owned, but it turned out that Hugh, ostensibly single, in fact had a mistress and family whom he’d kept secret. They sued for his assets after his death, the case dragging on until 1955.
Although not possessed by the Tennent family for very long, Tennent’s Bar has kept their name (not to be confused with Tennent’s Brewery).
For the last twenty years, it has been owned by Mitchells and Butlers, who have 200 pubs and other premises in Scotland, including All Bar One and the Tobey Carvery. The interior, however, is still very much a Victorian bar.
The manager of the pub, Alison O’Connor, said that the owners, “want to keep it looking as untouched as possible.” The antiquated décor is one of the things that draws people to Tennent’s.
Geoff Cooper, a post-doctoral researcher at the university and Tennent’s regular, observed, “It has a nice atmosphere of an established, old, traditional pub.”
That is not to say that everything about Tennent’s has remained unchanged. It was one of the last bars in Glasgow to prohibit women, barring them until the late 1970s.
O’Connor says, “What’s now the ladies’ loo used to be a cleaning cupboard.” Women (and sympathetic men) protested outside the doors, marching with placards, then rushing into the pub. Once they gained entry, women took over; Tennent’s has had a female manager ever since.
These days, Tennent’s is frequented by students (proving that Caird’s concerns were not misplaced) but it is also very much a locals’ bar.
It has one of the cheapest pints on Byres Road – you can get a beer for less than three pounds — while still offering a selection of twelve real ales on draft.
Six of the ales are always available, and the other six rotate weekly, with O’Connor making the selections herself. It’s understandably a popular pub with real ale enthusiasts.
They serve food from breakfast until 10pm, a menu of standard pub food but like the beers, at a cheap and cheerful price. As it’s a dog-friendly pub, there are usually a few dogs enjoying the atmosphere along with their owners.
The main bar is still a place where people go to chat, with no music playing on a PA, although there might be sport on the televisions.
Downstairs you find Tennent’s Basement, a smaller premises where they have a comedy night, gigs, and jam sessions, but O’Connor observes that the upstairs bar is more popular with the students.
Around the corner, there’s a small room with booths, which is usually quieter than the main bar. O’Connor said it used to be an off-license before Tennent’s bought the space and expanded into it.
For an affordable pint of real ale and a quiet chat, it’s one of the best pubs on Byres Road.