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One of our ongoing themes at You & Yesterday is the history of local public houses and Derbyshire's long association with the brewing industry. Here Peter Seddon wonders how the Douglas Bar on Normanton Road, Derby, got its unusual name.

The Douglas Bar in 1982

The starkly-named Douglas Bar at 206 Normanton Road, Derby, is one of those neighbourhood pubs that draws its customers largely from the immediate vicinity. For that reason, I would hazard a guess that only a very small proportion of Derbyshire's pubgoers have actually visited it.

Not that that makes it an uninteresting hostelry. For a start there is its unusual name. No one really seems to know where it came from. There is a Douglas Street in Derby named after Alderman Archibald Douglas, who owned much land in the area around 1800 - it has been suggested that the Douglas Bar could have been named after the same man, but that is really a stab in the dark, and seems unlikely. Can anyone provide an answer, or even a suggestion?

As for its history, that is a little vague too. The premises had originally been a restaurant called the 'Refreshment Bar', which from at least 1889 served the burgeoning and quite prosperous communities of Litchurch and New Normanton.

Some time between the First and Second World War, a beer retailing business obtained a licence to operate a beerhouse from the premises under the aegis of Offilers' Brewery. A beer house was not a pub as we know it today, but merely a premises entitled to dispense beer alone, the sale of other alcoholic beverages being strictly forbidden.

Only in 1950 did the Douglas Bar obtain its full licence.

Exactly when it became known as Douglas Bar has not been documented, although one source says it had acquired that name by at least 1935. That aside, it was for many years known informally as 'Harry Leonard's' - but no mystery surrounds that particular tag.

It was acquired because the premises were run for some time by the former Derby County player Harry Leonard, who joined The Rams in 1911 and left them in 1920. A high-scoring centre forward - full name Henry Doxford Leonard - he also played for Newcastle United, Grimsby Town, Middlesbrough, Manchester United, and finally Heanor Town.

Born in Sunderland in 1886, Harry Leonard died in Derby on 3 November 1951. His dates at The Douglas have not been substantiated, but it is known that his tenure there came after his retirement from football, probably spanning the 1920s to 1940s. Is there a picture of him in the Douglas Bar? There ought to be, although one suspects not.

Here are a couple of curious snippets concerning the Douglas Bar. Firstly, it features on a brewing heritage website which lists all the pubs which are known to retain some sort of 'livery' linked to defunct breweries. In this case the feature is a lantern sign above the door with 'Kimberley Ales' on it - the lettering is faded, and like the Hardy and Hansons brewery whose beer it commemorates, may soon be gone forever.

The second piece of trivia is an odd one indeed, for in July 2007 the Douglas Bar featured in a bizarre news story which was nationally networked. It began like the narrative of a joke - 'A man went into a bar in Derby and said he was the well-known Irish jump jockey Dean Gallagher'.

But the punchline wasn't funny. After giving racing tips to the Douglas regulars he revisited the pub a number of times and befriended its customers and the landlady. But alas, on his final visit it seems 'Gallagher' raided the till and made off with £2,500 worth of takings.

'Gallagher' was in fact a very plausible impostor by the name of Terry Kirby - the Douglas Bar's trusting customers had been taken for 'mug punters' big time, for the real Dean Gallagher was quietly ensconced at his comfortable home in France!

If only those impressionable customers had paused for a moment to ask themselves a pertinent question - would an internationally successful and wealthy jockey really select the Douglas Bar as his watering-hole of choice? Answers on a postcard!

That's all on the Douglas Bar for now. If you know how or when this Derby pub got its name, click on the 'edit' link and add your comments below.

• Derbyshire Pubs - Your Stories Wanted!
• Douglas Bar - The Footballer, the Jockey and a Mystery Name A Football Link

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County:  Derbyshire

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