Navigation - Loughborough Road

The Navigation, or White House, now the Otter. The 1927 building situated where the Soar is nearest to the A6. The present Marina, a little further downstream (the right in this view) occupies the site of a former commercial wharf.

This pub was opened to serve the trade created by the Loughborough Navigation, as the canal was known. Named after it, the Navigation probably dated from the early 1780s. The original building was demolished in the 1920s and a mock Tudor edifice was erected there in 1927. The old building faced up the Loughborough Road, towards Hathern, whereas the later one faces the road.

This new pub was named the White House and Harry Stanton was the fIrst licensee. In the 1930s, a ferry operated by Stanton connected one side of the River Soar to the other. Worthington owned the Navigation from 1925 and the White House passed to Bass on the merger with Worthington. For some years the White House was also a restaurant, and in the early 1990s the property was fully refurbished as a pub and restaurant, renamed the Otter.