Ambassador

AMBASSADORS HOTEL
107 King William St

The Ambassadors Hotel was established in 1840 as the Red Lion, then City Arms, United Service Club, Palace Hotel
and others.
A framed poster on the stairway
gives some humorous insights
into the hotel’s past.

The Story of ‘the Ambassadors’, Adelaide ...

Lend me an ear, ye who enter my bar, As I tell you a story of eras afar ..

Back o’er a century when history was young, When was founded an Inn in the year fourty-one,

Which was talk of the town with its elegant stables, Its gambling games and ordinary tables.

With the old rough bush bar of tallow and gum ... Kegs up on top of porter or rum ..

True, they didn’t have carpets, or fluorescent light .. But the pub didn’t close until late in the night.

And come Sunday they oft sang orchestral psalms ...To an organ or fiddles within the old Arms.

In the day when the dandy in velvet & lace, Did Lancers with beauties with infinite grace;

Crinoline, bustle, and gingham of blue, This when Australia was terribly new; ..

When bushmen & shearers & miners & cooks Would gather to battle with bartender books;

On races conducted, an annual meet For brumbies and hacks in King William Street;

Where a gin case did duty as race starting post, And the stewards-cum-judge was always, Mine Host!

Then the meeting would end in a free-for-all spree, This long ago in a gone century ...

So progress occurred & Lloyds hit the fore With their ‘Coffee House’ sign hung over the door

Til eighteen-six [eight?] -one, which again ushered in The name ‘City Arms’, the subsequent din

Of the celebrate crowd at the banquet & ball, And the beer drinking bouts & occasional brawl,

Struck terror to hearts of teetotal qualms. Then ended the reign of the Inn City Arms

So a city advanced through mulga wood scrub, And a modern 3-storey replaced the old pub

Came the century’s turn & the railways were born ...The phaeton gave way to the motor cars horn ..

They pulled down the stables, a new era begun ... And again a name change in Nineteen -3-One ...

And so the ‘Ambassadors’ echoed the beat ... Of buses and trams in King William Street

Where once rang the hooves of brumby and hack ... past the finishing line by the old hitching rack ...

Faded the names of a vanished decade ... the patrons of old, the jokes that they played

And the threepenny pints, the Ordinaries too ... The crinoline, bustle, and gingham of blue ...

This be the story of eras afar ... You’ve heard as herein, you lean on the bar ...