In 1854 Abraham Cohen opened the House of All Nations at Rocky River. The Inn was sold to Thomas & Ellen Maccoy in 1856, Ellen being a Daughter of an Inn keeper back in Ireland. Thomas Maccoy died in 1857.

At the licensing court in Armidale, Ellen had the licensee transferred to Armidale, on the 27th of April 1858, and opened the Wellington Inn on Beardy Street, the current site of the Tattersalls Hotel.

The publican’s licensee has issued continuously of the site since then.

Ellenhad a daughter Amelia from her first marriage to Samuel Salter. Amelia, then 16, inherited the land in Beardy Street from a John Smith (relationship mysterious and unknown) in 1856.

Ellen married her third husband, George D Cooper in 1862 at the age of 38.

In 1859, Amelia married William (Billy) Gordon Brereton, who took over the Wellington in 1871. Billy had been a stage coach driver who picked up and dropped off passengers at the Wellington.

In 1873 Billy raised the old Wellington and completed a new 3 story hotel in May 1874. From that time, until completion of the Imperial Hotel in 1890, there was no doubt that the Wellington was the “best hotel in the North”.

Construction of the railway from Sydney reached Armidale in 1883, Armidale was proclaimed a city in 1885, and the construction of the railway from Armidale to Queensland was completed in 1888.

Unfortunately, Billy over extended himself financially, and in June 1876 he put the Wellington up for sale and offered himself as an insolvent.

The hotel came under the control of the mortgagees, who put in a series of managers. Notably, one of the licensees, Joseph Moses, made a large fortune during his tenancy.

With improving business times, the mortgagees put the hotel up for sale and in 1884, the hotel was sold to Patrick Wade for the sum of £5,000, who changed its name to the Tattersalls Hotel.

There were several "Tattersalls Hotels" up until this time in the Armidale district, at Hillgrove, Metz, Uralla, Guyra and Armidale.

Patrick Wade took the Tattersalls name from a hotel previously on the corner of Marsh and Beardy Streets, Armidale that closed in 1878.

Patrick Wade increased the Beardy Street frontage in 1889 with the construction of the east wing and addition of large cast iron balconies, at that time the only one in Australia. Further additions were completed in 1893 making Tattersalls, second to none in the north.

Patrick Wade died suddenly in 1893 aged 48, leaving a wife and 3 very young children.

Mrs. Wade soon remarried, changing her name to Frankland.

Frankland extended the hotel down the western boundary in the direction of (now) Cinders Lane. A succession of publicans followed Frankland, a notable being Joseph Kirkwood, who introduced an acetylene gas plant in 1909 to light the hotel.

In 1912 the Tattersalls was transferred to Thomas DeCourcey who made the hotel into “far and away the best stand in Armidale”. DeCourcey did so well he tied the hotel to “Tooth and Co” products for ten years, at the end of which he sold the hotel to Harold J Robinson for £17,000 in 1929 and retired.

There was no doubting Tattersalls re-emergence under Robinsons charge.

Throughout the worst years of the depression, Robinson averaged £3,000 p.a. profit up until 1935. At the time Tattersall was touted “as the best hotel from a business point of view outside of Sydney”.

Robinson held the license until his death in 1946.

In 1936-37 he remodeled in Art-Deco style, connected to the new Armidale sewerage system, installed the first electric lift in the city. Those additions included 25 bedrooms on the first floor, 29 bedrooms including a magnificent dining room with Tallow wood floor for dancing on the second floor, lined the stairway with walnut plywood and had Art-Deco pressed metal ceilings installed in many areas.

Following the death of Robinson, the hotel became “very rundown” by the 1950’s.

In 1977, renovations aimed at increasing turnover were undertaken, including an arcade of shops on the western boundary, from Beardy Street mall towards Cinders Lane. The arcade was reclaimed in 1995 by licensees Brian & Julie Hilton.

In 1996 the hotel was purchased by the UNE Students Union and in 2006, sold at auction to Arm Pub Unit Trust owned by the Hendry’s and Cassidy’s.

Following several upgrade options, John and Annette Cassidy took over full ownership of the unit trust in 2016 and decided to proceed with a total re-development of the hotel in Art-Deco style.