The Yorkshire Stingo was a public house in Marylebone

Marylebone

Marylebone is an affluent inner-city area of central London, located within the City of Westminster. It is sometimes written as St. Marylebone or Mary-le-bone....

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 which was a significant landmark outside central London in the eighteenth and 19th century.

Located on the south side of the Marylebone Road, it was a rural location when first built. An admittance charge was made, redeemable with the waiters, as a method of preventing those with no money from enjoying the facilities. Its name comes from a fashionable slang

Slang

Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...

 word of the 18th century for strong beer

Beer

Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...

.

In 1786, the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor

Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor

The Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor was a charitable organization founded in London in 1786 to provide sustenance for distressed people of African and Asian origin...

 used it as one of the centres for distributing alms

Alms

Alms or almsgiving is a religious rite which, in general, involves giving materially to another as an act of religious virtue.It exists in a number of religions. In Philippine Regions, alms are given as charity to benefit the poor. In Buddhism, alms are given by lay people to monks and nuns to...

. A bowling green

Bowling green

A bowling green is a finely-laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of lawn for playing the game of lawn bowls.Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep on them...

 and tea garden

Tea garden

Tea garden may refer to:* Roji, gardens surrounding Japanese tea houses and which form part of the architecture associated with Japanese tea ceremony* Tea plantations, where tea bushes are cultivated...

s were added in the 18th century.

Nothing in the world is as fine as my bridge except a woman. - Tom Paine.

During 1790 the Yorkshire Stingo was the temporary home of the second cast iron bridge ever built. This was designed by Tom Paine who had endeavoured to interest the authorities in Philadelphia and Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in his design. He had gained a patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

 for this in 1788 and Walkers, who had an ironworks in Sheffield

Sheffield

Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...

, Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

 agreed to construct it. The original design of 250 feet (76.2 m) - to span the Schuylkill River

Schuylkill River

The Schuylkill River is a river in Pennsylvania. It is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River.The river is about long. Its watershed of about lies entirely within the state of Pennsylvania. The source of its eastern branch is in the Appalachian Mountains at Tuscarora Springs, near Tamaqua in...

, Philadelphia, had been scaled down to 90 feet (27.4 m). Paine was discussed the bridge in correspondence with Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

, Sir Joseph Banks

Joseph Banks

Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, GCB, PRS was an English naturalist, botanist and patron of the natural sciences. He took part in Captain James Cook's first great voyage . Banks is credited with the introduction to the Western world of eucalyptus, acacia, mimosa and the genus named after him,...

, George Washington

George Washington

George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...

 and Sir George Staunton

George Thomas Staunton

Sir George Thomas Staunton, 2nd Baronet was an English traveller and Orientalist.-Early life:Born at Milford House near Salisbury, he was the son of Sir George Leonard Staunton , first baronet, diplomatist and Orientalist...

 and entertained hopes that it might be the model for an iron bridge across the Thames as well as the Seine

Seine

The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels...

. Paine had supervised the work at the Walker factory, and supervised the erection in the grounds of the Yorkshire Stingo. It weighed 3 tons and could bear a weight of 6. Peter Whiteside, a Philadelphian merchant was backing the project, but found himself in financial difficulties and asked Paine to return the money he had lent, and in the end the project had to be abandoned. Parts of the bridge were then used in an iron bridge over the River Wear

River Wear

The River Wear is located in North East England, rising in the Pennines and flowing eastwards, mostly through County Durham, to the North Sea at Sunderland.-Geology and history:...

 in Sunderland. William Yates, who acted as Paine's foreman also worked on this bridge and the subsequent Southwark Bridge

Southwark Bridge

Southwark Bridge is an arch bridge for traffic linking Southwark and the City across the River Thames, in London, England. It was designed by Ernest George and Basil Mott. It was built by Sir William Arrol & Co. and opened in 1921...

 built by John Rennie

John Rennie (father)

John Rennie was a Scottish civil engineer who designed many bridges, canals, and docks.-Early years:Rennie, a farmer's younger son, was born at Phantassie, near East Linton, East Lothian, Scotland, and showed a taste for mechanics at a very early age, and was allowed to spend much time in the...

. Paine later quipped that "the French revolution, and Mr Burke's attacks upon it, drew me off any pontifical works".

In 1829, it became one of the first termini for the London bus

Bus

A bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. Buses can have a capacity as high as 300 passengers. The most common type of bus is the single-decker bus, with larger loads carried by double-decker buses and articulated buses, and smaller loads carried by midibuses and minibuses; coaches are...

es. In 1836, a hall for vaudeville and burlesque, called the Apollo Saloon, was added but by 1848 the gardens were closed. The public house was finally closed in 1964.The site has since been used for the County Court and a public Baths.