Friday, July 11

Lost Pubs from the WME Archives #40

Life begins at 40 or so the saying goes but when you're dealing with the Lost Pubs Series, reaching my fortieth posting doesn't feel like anything to celebrate. Sadly for these five bygone boozers, any life was sucked out of them when their final closures were confirmed, so no new beginnings just archive reflections I'm afraid - let's see which ones get an airing this time around...

- The Craven (Arms) -
The wheel of watering hole fortune has spun us two from Coventry and three from Telford on this occasion, so let's commence with the Coventry duo. Woodway Lane over in Walsgrave was the setting for the Craven Arms, which appeared to have dropped its Arms suffix at the time of my picture. I never went in it but it always had the air of a presentable backstreet number whenever I happened past on the Potters Green bus, which admittedly wasn't especially often. The site is now occupied by apartments. 

- The Black Horse -
My other Coventry contender was something of a Spon End mainstay with heritage charm, so - with apologies to the Craven - I'm even more disappointed I never sampled a drink here. The Black Horse was a plain but homely three-storey affair that potentially traced its history back over 200 years, maybe even before that; I'm told it had a particularly lovely Victorian lounge that had been stripped out by a developer when the place permanently shut down. Alas, a road widening scheme to ease congestion in the area meant it was demolished in January 2023 and there's no coming back from that!

- Cross Keys Inn -
To Telford then, where we'll firstly pay homage to a much-lamented Hadley hostelry. The Cross Keys Inn could be found on Haybridge Road, not far from the local shopping parade or the sprawl of brown concrete footbridges which always seem to define the district in my own mind. I missed out on this one too (including when it was latterly renamed as the Queen Vic for no obvious reason) but my Dad might have been in a few times during his GKN Sankey days. Now it functions as a Polish and Eastern European shop with a car wash on the side.

- The White Lion -
If the Cross Keys is at least still standing albeit with that change of use, the same fate sadly doesn't apply to the White Lion at Ketley. A Banks's boozer with a long whitewashed frontage, it stood on Holyhead Road virtually opposite the community centre with which it formed an excellent pair of landmarks. I can't vouch for the veracity of this, but it is said that the pub might have dated back to 1661, and the Sainsbury's store which subsequently replaced it includes a panel referencing that year as a nod to this lost heritage. 

- The Alexandra -
And so to the only pub of these five that I have actually frequented, whereby the Alexandra in Oakengates appealed to me as a traditional homely mid-terraced number on Slaney Street - in short, my kind of place given its focus on cask ale and conversation. Unfortunately those fine credentials couldn't prevent it from shutting forever in 2018, with the result that the premises has since been converted into a private house. Such a shame!

No comments:

Post a Comment