MANY will remember enjoying a drink or attending an event at the former Periscope pub on Walney and it is now a half-century since the first pint was pulled.

The demolished pub used to stand on Mill Lane, Walney, and was built as part of a major housing development scheme for North Walney.

The Periscope’s role in serving pints was over by 2005 and in 2012 Barrow Council was ready to clear the site to stop vandalism to the empty building

The official opening ceremony for the new £50,000 Bass-Charrington pub was led by Rear Admiral C.D. Madden on April 26 in 1969.

The walls of the pub had pictures of 40 submarines with ties to Barrow – and it had a full-size and fully functioning periscope.

It had been too big to fit in by normal methods so a hole had to be opened in the new roof.

The periscope was designed to scan the horizon for enemy ships but was just as good for snooping through the net curtains at houses in Mill Lane.

As you might imagine there were protests. At first it was locked into position to prevent it being raised or lowered, or exploring the Walney rooftops.

The complaints continued so the periscope was removed.

It had been salvaged from the 780-ton experimental vessel Explorer, which was launched at Barrow in 1954.

Explorer, and sister ship Excalibur, were built to test out a German Second World War development of hydrogen peroxide as a fuel.

HTP (high test peroxide) was thought of as a new wonder fuel as it provided a way to control the highly explosive compound of hydrogen and oxygen.

The heat it produced drove high pressure steam turbine.

They were not to herald in a new era of Barrow submarine building as they were eclipsed in performance by the advent of atomic vessels.

By 1970 both had been broken up but Explorer’s periscope was salvaged for the lounge bar of the Walney pub.

The Periscope pub underwent a major refurbishment in 1995 and was officially reopened by St Helens and Great Britain rugby league star Paul Loughlin in September.