Why Scott Names Dominated Victorian Pubs

The remarkable number of pubs, hotels and inns named after Sir Walter Scott or his characters is not accidental. It reflects the extraordinary cultural influence Scott exerted across Britain during the nineteenth century. Few authors have shaped the naming of streets, buildings and public houses to the same extent.

The first reason is the unprecedented popularity of Scott’s novels. Beginning with Waverley in 1814, Scott effectively invented the historical novel as a mass-market literary form. His works sold in enormous numbers throughout Britain and across Europe. Characters such as Rob Roy, Ivanhoe and Jeanie Deans became widely recognised figures in popular culture. In an age before cinema or radio, Scott’s novels functioned almost like modern blockbuster films: they provided memorable stories, heroes and settings that people felt they knew intimately. Publicans often chose names that customers would immediately recognise, and Scott supplied a ready-made gallery of famous characters and romantic titles.

Secondly, Scott’s works were strongly associated with landscape and place. Many of his novels were rooted in real locations in Scotland and northern England. This made them ideal for use as pub names in areas connected with those landscapes. In the Scottish Borders, the Trossachs and parts of northern England, inns adopted names such as Rob Roy, Waverley or Abbotsford because they evoked the literary scenery visitors associated with those regions. As Victorian tourism expanded, these literary associations became commercially valuable.

A third factor was the rise of railway travel. When the main railway station in Edinburgh was named Waverley in the 1840s, after Scott’s series of novels, it reinforced the idea that Scott’s fiction could be used as a civic and commercial brand. Nearby streets, hotels and pubs followed suit. This pattern was repeated elsewhere: businesses discovered that Scott-related names gave an establishment a recognisable identity linked to romance, history and Scottish culture.

Scott’s reputation during the nineteenth century also played an important role. After his death in 1832 he was widely regarded as Scotland’s national writer. His home at Abbotsford became a place of pilgrimage, and monuments to him appeared across the country, most famously the Scott Monument in Edinburgh (1844). Naming a pub after Scott or one of his characters therefore carried a sense of cultural prestige. It suggested education, patriotism and literary taste, qualities that Victorian proprietors were often keen to associate with their premises.

Finally, Scott’s stories provided particularly suitable pub names because they were colourful and memorable. Names such as The Black Dwarf, Peveril of the Peak or Redgauntlet have a dramatic quality that lends itself naturally to signage and conversation. Even those who had never read the novels might find such names intriguing or evocative.

By the late nineteenth century the effect was clear: Scott had become one of the most commercially influential writers in Britain in terms of place-naming. His novels shaped the names of railway stations, streets, hotels and a large number of public houses. Many of those establishments have since disappeared, but the surviving examples provide a small but revealing reminder of the enormous cultural reach Scott enjoyed during the Victorian period.



For historians and literary scholars, these pubs form an unusual kind of memorial landscape. They show how literature can move beyond books and become embedded in everyday life — not only in monuments and libraries, but also in the ordinary social spaces where people gather, talk and share stories.

1: Sir Walter Scott

The Sir Walter Scott — Edinburgh Airport, Edinburgh — EH12 9DN — open (airside Wetherspoon).

Sir Walter Scott — 2 Broadway Market, Hackney, London — E8 — former pub, now another use.

The Faltering Fullback — 19 Perth Road, London — N4 3HB — open; formerly called Sir Walter Scott until 1994.

The Scott & Brassey — Carlisle railway station, Platform 4, Carlisle — station pub, opened 25 February 2026; named in part for Scott.

Sir Walter Scott — 24 North Road, Preston — former pub, demolished in the 1960s.

Sir Walter Scott — 180 Osmaston Road, Derby — former pub listed in Derby’s lost-pubs record.

2: Scott’s novels

The Kenilworth — 152–154 Rose Street, Edinburgh — EH2 3JD — open; the pub states it takes its name from Scott’s Kenilworth.

Peveril of the Peak — 127 Great Bridgewater Street, Manchester — M1 5JQ — open; Scott link is contested, because one source attributes the name to Scott’s novel while Historic England says it came from a stagecoach of the same name.

Ivanhoe — Melton Road, Sprotbrough, Doncaster — DN5 7NS — open.

The Ivanhoe Hotel — South St David Street, Edinburgh — historic venue, now gone;

The Black Dwarf   —  London — W6

Redgauntlet  — Dumfries - DG1

3: Scott's characters

Bailie Nicol Jarvie Hotel — Bailie Nicol Jarvie Court, Lochard Road, Aberfoyle — FK8 3SZ — former hotel/pub, now flats; the name derives from Scott’s Rob Roy.

Jeanie Deans Tryste / Jeanie Deans Edinburgh — now Tipsy Midgie, 67 St Leonard’s Hill, Edinburgh — EH8 9SB — former Scott-named pub;

4: Scott's places or estates

The Abbotsford Bar & Restaurant  — 3–5 Rose Street, Edinburgh — EH2 2PR — open

5: Historical pubs

The Hawes Inn — 7 Newhalls Road, South Queensferry — EH30 9TA — open; visitor interpretation says Scott used it as a location in The Antiquary.

The Sheep Heid Inn — 43–45 The Causeway, Duddingston, Edinburgh — EH15 3QA — open; Historic Environment Scotland says Scott was among the literary figures who frequented it.

Tibbie Shiels Inn — St Mary’s Loch — TD7 5LH — closed as a pub; literary association with Scott and James Hogg is explicitly noted.

Kings Arms & Castle Hotel — The Square, Kenilworth — former pub/hotel; closed, subdivided and repurposed. Closed Pubs records that Scott reputedly stayed there while writing Kenilworth.

Saracens Head — 40–41 Market Place, Newark — former coaching inn; closed as a pub in 1956. Closed Pubs notes that it is mentioned in The Heart of Midlothian as the inn where Jeanie Deans stayed en route to London.

6: Rob Roy

Rob Roy Hotel — Aberfoyle — FK8 3UX — open; the hotel says it is named after Rob Roy MacGregor, the local folk hero central to Scott’s novel.

Rob Roy Inn — 45 Main Street, Buchlyvie — FK8 3LR — former pub, closed in 2014; CAMRA records the name and notes murals and quotations devoted to Rob Roy.

Rob Roy Bar — 2 Cawane Street, Stirling — FK8 1JR — former pub; CAMRA says this became Raffles Tap Room and later closed.

The Rob Roy — 8 Sale Place, Bayswater, London — W2 — former name of the Royal Standard before later changes and closure.

Rob Roy — 113 Beaumont Street, Liverpool — historic lost pub listed in Liverpool’s lost-pubs record.

Rob Roy — 31 Hanover Street, Portsmouth — historic lost pub listed in Portsmouth’s lost-pubs record.

Rob Roy — 40 Vine Street, Hulme, Manchester — historic lost pub listed in Manchester’s lost-pubs record. 

7: Waverley

Waverley Bar  — Edinburgh — EH1 1TA. CAMRA explicitly states that the pub is named after Walter Scott’s Waverley novels.

Waverley Hotel — Callander — FK17 8BD.

Waverley — Glasgow — G32 8UW.

Waverley Bar  — Hawick — TD9 9HR.

Waverley — Wishaw — ML2 7NG. Closed long-term.

We believe this to be the most comprehensive public listing of Sir Walter Scott-related public houses in the UK.

 If we have missed any site of significance, please let us know via the form below.

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