hiStory

Innovating for a global palate since 1950.

We took over this fantastic building in January 2022 little knowing what trials and tribulations it would bring.

We are all well-experienced in the hospitality trade and looked forward to this venture but it has been challenging.

The restrictions on what you can and can't do to a listed building are legendary but the authorities still want you to survive and prosper!

No central heating or air conditioning, cold in the winter and hot in the summer. In the summer you can see daylight between the plaster and the beams. But we love it all the same and we hope you will too.

The Building

Dating back to around 1420, 51 Blue Boar Row is a typical Market Square corner tenement. It is timber framed and the true pattern of jettied joists and bressummer beams was only revealed in a recent renovation. The plan was four bays defined by five trusses. The frame is typical of its time, being constructed from collared tie-beam trusses with curved braces exposed to the ground floor. When rafters were exposed during renovation, they were seen to be smoke blackened suggesting that smoke from braziers found its way through the loosely fitting tiles on the original roof. Some original wattle and daub infill also remained in the trusses.

The building has undergone many changes over the centuries. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the framing on the ground floor was removed and replaced with shop windows. At some point in the 19th century, a floor was added to form an attic with access via a steep ladder-style stair. In the middle of the 20th century, the south and southeast sections of the shop front were removed and replaced with modern designs with plain boarding fascia covering much of the evidence of the jetty.

Extensive and careful renovations in 2005/6  resulted in the building looking as it does today. English oak was used from the New Forest and care was taken to retain as much of the original structure as possible. The roof is 95% original, the first floor 60% and the ground floor sadly just 10%. Many additions had been made over the centuries with 60 tons of rubbish being removed from the site before work could commence. In November 2006 the building was officially re-opened and received the Lady Radnor Award for Conservation.

History

When the layout of Salisbury was being planned, a huge chequer was left as a site for a market. Records show that a house was standing on this southeast corner of the Chequer in 1268. The property was owned by Hugh Nugg. It remained in the Nugg family for two centuries and became known as Nuggs Corner. Subsequently, many other upstanding Salisbury citizens have lived and/or worked on the site.

The building is known to have been a café for many years in the 20th century, although before the last war, it enjoyed a wide variety of uses including a Ladies Outfitters, Rowland & Sons coach booking office and Dobell & Shearman typewriter sales with the building divided for alternative uses. After the second world war, the building became Stoners Cafe and restaurant for many years before changing to Mr T’s Cafe in the 1970s with the later addition of an internet cafe above. Following the renovation of the building it was renamed Nuggs 1268, in honour of its original owner, it then became the Blue Boar Bistro.

Today, following the café tradition, it is the Pickled Frog, a family-run Café, Bar and Bistro offering a variety of freshly prepared and cooked food including Tapas, Light Bites, sharing platters and Main meals accompanied by great wines, beers, spirits, and cocktails. Feel free to visit and enjoy the work of the craftsmen of yesteryear and those of more recent times with the fayre of today.

Ghost Story

It is said there sometimes walks a ghost of a young girl, Matilda who died of diphtheria...