Shard Riverside Inn is a

public house A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...

and

boutique hotel Boutique hotels are small-capacity Hotel, hotels that provide more personalized service than typical hotels. They typically have fewer than a hundred rooms, and are considered more "trendy" and "intimate", often due to their location in urban ar ...

in the English village of Hambleton,

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

. Dating to 1766, it stands on the northern banks of the

River Wyre The River Wyre, in Lancashire, England, flows into the Irish Sea at Fleetwood. It is 28 miles (45 km) long and has a sheltered estuary which penetrates deep into the Fylde peninsula. Etymology The name ''Wyre'' is of pre-Roman, likely, ...

, about east of

Shard Bridge Shard Bridge is a bridge in the English county of Lancashire. It spans the River Wyre, connecting Singleton, on the southern side of the river, to Hambleton, on its northern side (an area known locally as "Over Wyre"), carrying both automotiv ...

, after which it is named. The bridge used to be immediately to the west of the building, but a new structure (the third overall) was built in 1993, a few yards downstream, and its predecessor demolished. The building's address, Old Bridge Lane, references this.

History

In the early 19th century, the building was a

ferryman A ferry is a boat or ship that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus. ...

's cottage known as Shard House. The slipway for the ferry still exists in front of the property.Walk Through Time
– Shard Riverside Inn website Around fifty years later, in

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatur ...

times,

Anna Sewell Anna Sewell (; 30 March 1820 – 25 April 1878)''The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers'' by Joanne Shattock. p. 385, Oxford University Press. (1993) was an English novelist who wrote the 1877 novel '' Black Beauty'', her only published work ...

, author of ''

Black Beauty ''Black Beauty: His Grooms and Companions, the Autobiography of a Horse'' is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was written from a horse as main character's perspective. She wrote it in the last years of her life, during which s ...

'', often visited her relatives who lived at the property. The property was put up for sale in April 2021, with an asking price of £2.6 million. Its owners had run the business since 2004."Highly profitable riverside hotel near Blackpool on market for £2.6m"
– LancsLive, 30 April 2021 The property and business was purchased in 2025 by the Taziker family.

Gravestone

In front of the property, on the

leeward In geography and seamanship, windward () and leeward () are directions relative to the wind. Windward is ''upwind'' from the point of reference, i.e., towards the direction from which the wind is coming; leeward is ''downwind'' from the point o ...

side of the

sea wall Sea Wall or The Sea Wall may refer to: * Seawall, a constructed coastal defence * Sea Wall, Guyana * ''The Sea Wall'' (novel), 1950 French novel by Marguerite Duras * ''The Sea Wall'' (film), 2008 film based on Duras' novel See also *'' This Ang ...

, is the gravestone of Norman Henshaw, then resident of the property, who drowned in the river on 14 August 1908, aged 25, after rescuing his dog, Jack. The dog survived, and lived another six years. Henshaw is not mentioned on the gravestone.

Gallery

File:Wyre Way below the Shard Riverside Hotel - geograph.org.uk - 2637409.jpg, Looking downstream (west) to

, 2011

References

External links

*
A circa-1965 view of the building's garden
–

Francis Frith Francis Frith (also spelled Frances Frith, 7 October 1822 – 25 February 1898) was an English photographer and businessman. Francis Frith & Co., the company he founded in 1860 with the initial goal of photographing every town and village in Eng ...

Photograph of the gravestone
–

Flickr Flickr ( ) is an image hosting service, image and Online video platform, video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a co ...

1766 establishments in England Buildings and structures in the Borough of Wyre Pubs in Lancashire Restaurants in Lancashire Hotels in Lancashire Hambleton, Lancashire {{pub-stub