The Bay Horse is Robin Ellacott’s family local pub in the market town of Masham, North Yorkshire. So far, it has been mentioned in The Silkworm (book 2), Lethal White (book 4), The Ink Black Heart (book 6), and features more heavily in book 8, The Hallmarked Man.
The pub is first mentioned in The Silkworm as being the pub Robin’s brothers go to after Matthew Cunliffe’s mother’s funeral at St Mary the Virgin Church. They leave Matthew at home uninvited.
“All three of Robin’s brothers had slid discreetly from the house. It was Saturday night and their mates were waiting in the Bay Horse on the square. Jon had come home from university for the funeral but did not feel he owed it to his sister’s fiancé to forgo a few pints of Black Sheep with his brothers, sitting at the dimpled copper tables by the open fire.” The Silkworm, Chapter 34
There are two fireplaces in the pub, so it could be either one. The tables are also no longer made of copper.
It is again mentioned in Lethal White when Strike and Robin are sat in The White Horse pub in Woolstone. Strike tells Robin that The Victory in St Mawes is his local, and Robin tells him that The Bay Horse is her local.
“‘Ours is the Bay Horse,’ said Robin, and she, too, had a sudden vision of a pub from what she would always think of as home, also white, standing on a street that led off the market square in Masham. It was there that she had celebrated her A-level results with her friends, the same night that Matthew and she had got into a stupid row, and he had left, and she had refused to follow, but remained with her friends.
“‘Why “bay”?’ asked Strike, now halfway down his pint and luxuriating in the sunshine, his sore leg stretched out in front of him. ‘Why not just “brown”?’
‘Well, there are brown horses,’ said Robin, ‘but bay means something different. Black points: legs, mane and tail.’” Lethal White, Chapter 44
The pub is again mentioned in book 6, The Ink Black Heart.
Robin is away in Zermatt during New Years with her cousin Katie.
Katie tells Robin that Matthew brought Sarah and their child home to Masham for Christmas. Robin “suffered barely a tremor” when told this.
“‘They’ve called him William,’ said Katie. ‘We ran into them one night in the Bay Horse. Matthew’s aunt was babysitting. I really don’t like that Sarah. Sooooo smug.’
‘Can’t say I’m that keen on her either,’ said Robin.” The Ink Black Heart, Chapter 4
In The Hallmarked Man, Robin and her brothers, plus Murphy and Carmen, all go to the pub on Christmas Eve (2016).
Robin first meets Martin’s girlfriend Carmen here, and, even though pregnant, asks Robin for a double vodka. Later, Robin sees Martin and Carmen in an argument by the beer barrels on the wall.
Robin also bumps into her ex husband Matthew Cunliffe and his wife Sarah.
The pub is located just off the large market square, at 5 Silver Street. Find it on the map below:
