
Choppington
The Travellers Rest, Scotland Gate
Last Updated:
20 Jan 2025
Choppington
This is a
Pub
55.150392, -1.603102
Founded in
Current status is
Extant
Designer (if known):
Still operating
To Choppington now, or should I saw Scotland Gate, to the Travellers Rest - a handsome pub on the main lane. I don't think there's a consensus as to why it's called Scotland Gate and appears to have only cropped up in the 19th century. I would put a punt on it relating to Scotch miners who resided here seeking work. In fact, at least 4 Scots still lived here in 1871.
The area is now dominated by inter-war council housing, but this site was once at the entrance of a pit village. There was a couple rows this side of the land, and down the road next to the Travellers Rest stood Choppington Colliery and a village in itself. It made for a perfect plot to stick a pub, reaping financial gain from the thirsty pitman.
The Travellers Rest we know today has stood here since around the 1870s, but there was a beer house here beforehand. A beer house, as recently noted, an establishment with a license to sell beer only rather than that and spirits. Far cheaper.
Previously, the Sir Colin Campbell stood here from at least 1856. It was named after the Lord Clyde, the perceived war hero who sweeped through India, Crimea and East Asia during the first 60 years of the 19th century. His status in Britain at the time reflects in the sheer amount of pubs named after him - in fact I think we've covered some Lord Clyde's. The building was a very modest affair, occupying a very small cottage on the lane corner.
The pub changed its name by 1860 to the Travellers Rest. It was the house of Mr Daniel Elliot and later Joseph Dixon, though the latter filed for bankruptcy by 1870 meaning this place changed hands again. This place underpinned the wider community, hosting auctions for local properties and, from the 1880s, the famous annual leek show which as far as I'm aware still continues (or did until COVID). Pigeon shooting and Quoits also took place from the garden.
It remains a timely reminder of Victorian Choppington, and personally the duck egg blue and black makes for a right nice colour scheme!
Listing Description (if available)


Both of these Ordnance Surveys depict Scotland Gate in the second half of the 19th century. We can also see the Sir Colin Campbell - the predecessor to the Travellers Rest. Note its role to the rest of the village, posing as the entrance to at that stage a very significant complex with 3 seperate pit rows. It was one of two pubs at the time, the other being the Choppington Inn supplanted onto the end of a lost terraced row, but this one will have almost felt like the gatehouse into the site. The colliery kindled the development of Choppington over the next 30 years.
By the 1890s, we see the product of that growth. The Travellers Rest is sandwiched between a fairly dense development, with housing added on all sides as well as all the expected infrastructure - schools, pubs, further chapels and the village institute. The village quite literally was built around it.

The village was well looked after in the following years. A welfare ground, cricket ground, football ground and a parish hall were located here by the mid 20th century as well as the large Eastgate development in the north east of Scotland Gate. For an area that's relatively off the map in recent decades, it was certainly a hive of activity last century.
The Travellers Rest in December 2024
The Travellers Rest is on the left of this shot looking up Scotland Gate in around the 1930s. Unknown source.