Jarrow Brewery puts North Shields pub The Magnesia Bank up for sale

Jarrow Brewery has put North Shield’s Magnesia Bank pub up for sale – meaning the award winning tavern is looking for it’s fourth new owner in only two years.

The boozer is back on the market after a “change in direction” by the firm, which also owns The Maltings in South Shields, Isis in Sunderland and the Robin Hood Inn in Jarrow.

Listed with a price tag of £375,000, Christie + Co associate director Mark Worley said it could appeal to potential landlords who want to run a gastropub.

“Current trade, which is improving rapidly, is entirely drinks-led,” he said.

“However, there is a large and well-equipped catering kitchen which could be utilised to develop a food offering and further improve turnover.”

Originally built as a bank in the 1850’s, the building became the Central Social Club after the commercial centre of North Shields moved further north.

In the 1980’s, following the club’s closure, it took on it’s current guise, becoming the Magnesia Bank – the name derived from it’s former use and he Magnesia Stair, one of the town’s old streets that led down to the riverside – after being taken over by Richard and Dee Slade, who ran it until 2006, when it was bought by Scottish and Newcastle.

A succession of tenants came and went before the pub entered administrative receivership in 2011. But it was saved by LT Management Services Ltd, who then sold the pub to Jarrow Brewery in July 2012.

But any new landlords might look to recapture the pub’s award winning food-based past.

In 2010, it became the first ever pub in Tyne and Wear to be listed in the prestigious Michelin Eating Out in Pubs Guide – six years after it was the only pub on Tyneside to be featured in the Which? magazine pub food guide.

Other honours have included Guinness Pub of the Year, Music Pub of the Year, Tyneside and Northumberland CAMRA pub of the year and first prize in the public house category of North Tyneside in Bloom 2003.