All of Otley, Yorkshire’s, famous pubs have been renamed The Jubilee Arms to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. This carries on a tradition in the town of renaming its pubs to mark special events.
Otley mayor Linda Hoare with Otley Pub Club chair Rob Skinner
This is the fifth royal occasion over the last 40 years when the town’s pubs have been renamed. They were called the Queen Elizabeth for the Diamond Jubilee in 2021.
As part of the town’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, Otley Pub Club asked the people of Otley to suggest an appropriate name that each and every pub could adopt over the four-day bank holiday weekend.
Almost 200 suggestions were received, many of which were humorous, like The Merry House of Windsor, and Lovely Jubilee. Some also had a distinctly local flavour, like Betty’s Tap Rooms and Our Lizzie. However, the majority contained a reference to the Queen, the Monarch, or the Sovereign, as well as ‘platinum’, ‘seventy’ or ‘jubilee’. There were also a couple of dozen variations on the name Lilibet and even a few sent in by diehard republicans (the Oliver Cromwell Inn?!). A couple of suggestions were just a little too risqué! All the entries were anonymised before the shortlist was created, to avoid any possible bias.
Shortlist
Following the poll, the Otley Pub Club committee created a shortlist of 23 names and asked the mayor of Otley, Linda Hoare, to pick the final name on behalf of the people of the town. This was The Jubilee Arms. Otley Pub Club will be contacting the person who suggested it, to give them a prize.
Bob Brook, project co-ordinator of Otley Pub Club, said: “If people are looking for somewhere to celebrate the historic Platinum Jubilee, then where better than The Jubilee Arms, and in Otley, for just a few days, we will have 20 of them!
“There’s a long-standing tradition of renaming Otley’s famous pubs for national celebrations, and this one couldn’t really be an exception, so in time-honoured fashion, come and raise a glass to Her Majesty and enjoy this remarkable occasion in The Jubilee Arms!”
Rob Skinner, chair of Otley Pub Club, added: “Otley Pub Club are delighted to be part of the town’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations. As they begin, some 20 pubs in Otley now sport the same name, which could be confusing if arranging to meet friends in The Jubilee Arms over the next four days! The only thing to do is to try to get round as many Jubilee Arms as you can and enjoy this once in a lifetime celebration in Otley’s famous pubs!”
