The Boot Inn

Today home to Alfredo's Restaurant, this building has been part of life in Conwy for centuries. Although altered several times, its core dates from the seventeenth century, and may even be earlier. There is a well inside that is said to date from the 13th century!

 

The present building combines what were once two separate properties: the Boot Inn and the neighbouring Plas Coch. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the building was remodelled and raised in height to create much of the appearance we see today.

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Like many inns, the Boot was more than simply somewhere to eat and drink. It was a meeting place at the heart of the community and regularly hosted local events. In 1871, for example, a supper was held here to celebrate the completion of replacement railway tracks through the four tunnels between Conwy and Bangor. The work had been described as both difficult and dangerous, yet remarkably it had been completed without a single accident.

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The people who lived here also reflect the changing story of the town. Plas Coch was home to Mary Read, whose son Hughie served with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers during the First World War. He was killed in Palestine in 1918 at the age of just twenty-four, having previously worked at Bodysgallen Hall. His story is one of many reminders that the impact of the war reached into every corner of Conwy.

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Not every story connected with the building is quite so solemn. In January 1897, William Roberts, a cobbler and leather dresser who lived at Plas Coch, was found dead beside his bed after returning home extremely drunk on New Year's Eve!

 

A few years later, in 1905, Richard Jones, a veteran of the Boer War who had recently returned to Conwy with his savings, appeared before the magistrates after a drunken evening at the Boot Inn ended with him and a friend assaulting the owner of a nearby fish and chip shop after refusing to pay for their meal.

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The building entered a new chapter in 1959 when Biagio Ramiconi, who had emigrated from Italy, secured permission to convert the former inn into a restaurant. The business he established, Alfredo's Restaurant, has remained a fixture in Conwy ever since. It recently changed hands.