Sunderland
The Three Crowns (The 3 Stories)
Last Updated:
11 Nov 2025
Sunderland
This is a
Pub
54.907545, -1.382975
Founded in
Current status is
Extant
Designer (if known):
The pub is now named The 3 Stories
How bloody gorgeous is The 3 Stories man 😍 a pub which has been stripped back top to bottom in 3 years to uncover its stunning toffee tiling.
The Three Crowns has been here far before this building was constructed, and the etching below presents the previous iteration. It’s certainly been here since the the 1870s as a small coaching inn - a first or final stopover from a trip west and predating the Wearmouth Bridge. Such does make me curious about its name, with my first suspicion harking to the three crowns of Scandinavia given there was prominent trading activity here.
The pub was fully rebuilt in 1876, as was the trend when owners were incredibly keen to lift the clientele and diversify their income streams beyond alcohol into hotels and lodgings.
As such it became known as the Three Crowns Hotel, with the ground floor ladened in this ornate caramel tiling around arched windows. There’s very few photos of it with the tiling from yesteryear, but the side elevation can be seen when the railway was being constructed on Pann Lane in the year of its reopening. It certainly came at a good time with the station opening opposite for travellers from
north and south.
The pub had originally closed in 1959, then underwent various guises as furniture shops and for a short time as a JJB. Hideous grey panelling covered up this whole frontage, so it was a relegation to see this opened up and returned to its former glory. These days, it’s a true return to the zenith of late 19th century tavern architecture.
Listing Description (if available)
These are some of the earliest detailed plans we have of Bishopwearmouth from the 1840s and 1850s, showing the area a half century after urbanisation really started - much fuelled by the pits, shipyards and shipping on the river.
The first survey of 1846 really shows why The Three Crowns thrived and persisted from the 18th century. It was smack bang in the middle of this blooming settlement and eventually next to the central junction between the Wearmouth Bridge, the south road, the east road to Hylton and the west road to Sunderland and the barracks. When peering around, this will have been one of the stops for anyone travelling here by boat or by hoof. This was also where the original market stood in medieval times.
The Three Crowns is shown in far more fidelity in the 1858 town plan, with the pub fronting the old nunnery gardens. Pann Lane, where the railway would later be constructed cut and cover, was lined with its own pub - The Ship Carlisle demolished by the 1870s.
It's worth accelerating a century later into the 1950s, when modernity sprang up from the coal seams. The footprint of early 19th century Sunderland remains. The nunnery gardens haven't entirely been filled in and that narrow seam of buildings on Pann Lane cleared for the ventilation shafts for the railway. The pub was no doubt helped by the sheer luck that sprang with Central Station constructed opposite, and no doubt why it was rebuilt with lodgings.
The revamped 3 Stories, once The Three Crowns, in October 2025
The Three Crowns can be seen with its original rebuilt facade on the left. That larger building on the right is the back of the Roman Catholic church. Unknown original source.
The Three Crowns Hotel, now fronted by plaster (?) at the north end of Central Station, with a circle line tram gliding east on High Street East. Unknown original source.