About
CAMRA Pub of the year 2025
Since 1830
Welcome to the Albert Inn
The Albert Inn is a much loved Bridgetown pub known for its warm welcome good food and real community spirit. Fresh dishes are served daily alongside traditional ales and ciders including award winning brews made on site at the Bridgetown Brewery. With a history that stretches back to the early nineteenth century the pub remains a lively meeting place for locals and visitors alike. From quiz nights and live music to special food evenings and festivals there is always something happening. Most recently the Albert Inn was named South Devon CAMRA Pub of the Year 2025 a proud moment in our long story.
Real ales and stouts brewed on site
The Bridgtown Brewery
Our Brewery started in 2008 at the begging of the micro brewery expansion, we were the first brewery to open in Totnes for over 60 years. With no experience of making bear but plenty of experience tasting we started work on our range. I was told that if I could follow a recipe I could create something special.
I can not say that they were immediately successful but we persevered, using our local patron’s as our crash test dummies, In 2012 there was a phone call from a concerned mother who wondered if her son could come on a work placement in the brewery before he blew the garage up. So George is now brewing regularly and the our range has gone from strength to strength most recently winning awards at Siba maltings fest.
The Story of the Albert Inn
Studies that traced the story of Totnes reveal that Fore Street was already growing with homes and small businesses in the early nineteenth century. Step across the river into Bridgetown and you will discover the Albert Inn with it's rich history of community spirit.
It all began when two former drovers cottages were transformed into a pub in 1831. The pub changed its name more than once becoming the Victoria and later The Albert Inn. Totnes had long held firm royalist loyalties which were recorded during Oliver Cromwells visit in 1646. The proud Prince Albert sign now displayed in the lounge bar reminds visitors of that Victorian link. The original sign hung well into the twentieth century even though Prince Albert had passed away in 1861.
Royal footsteps have crossed this street too. In 1898 the Duke and Duchess of York travelled through Fore Street after stepping ashore from the vessel Totnes Castle at Steamer Quay. With the arrival of motor vehicles the pub became a starting point for all male charabanc outings which must have been quite the sight.
In 1923 the property appeared in a sale at the Seymour Hotel described as containing a public bar a bar parlour four bedrooms a large stable and a workshop among other features. During the years between the wars the licensee was Mr Albert Pack.
By the 1980s local photographer Barrington Weekes had set up a studio in Chapel Lane opposite. The lane itself once carried keg deliveries for the pub and stretched north out of Bridgetown. It is believed that its name comes from the days when premises now part of the Inn were used as a Chapel of Ease for Bridgetown residents who could not reach the parish church in Berry Pomeroy.
In 1986 a spirited group of Albert Inn regulars famously kidnapped a patron from the Globe Inn beneath Totnes Castle in good humour and high spirits. Another nod to tradition came in 1998 when the old street sign was replaced by a new version showing Prince Albert behind a Union Jack at the time the Albert Memorial in London was gilded.
The regulars were a sociable bunch and often walked together. They called themselves The Parliament for their long conversations in the parlour where they would set the world to rights over a pint. In the early years of the new century a fresh pub sign appeared showing a different Albert this time Einstein.
Around the same period scenes from the Ken Loach film The Wind That Shakes The Barley were filmed in Bridgetown and the Albert Inn briefly became The Braying Donkey for the production.
A new chapter began when Venture Inns appointed Giles Hawkins as licensee in 2006 which paved the way for Bridgetown Brewery to open beyond the pub bars and kitchen.
The summer of 2011 brought competitive excitement when a crew from the Albert Inn joined the Dragon Boat Races which later became the Longbow Canoe Festival. Crews of ten raced over three hundred metres. The Albert Inn was the only team to take part in all eight successive summer events which raised funds for local charities through the Totnes Rotary Club.
Most recently the Albert Inn was proudly named South Devon CAMRA Pub of the Year 2025.