Lost Pubs from the WME Archives #33

I started my Lost Pubs series of blogposts nearly five years ago and here we are 33 episodes in with still enough material to keep me occupied for several more yet. Our first archive dip of 2024 brings back memories of bygone boozers from Birmingham, Coventry, Burton and Herefordshire...

- The Stags Head -

We'll start this selection on Summer Lane in Birmingham where there used to be a fair few pubs on the run up into Newtown. The Barrel Bar & Grill has survived (at time of writing) but the Stags Head on the corner of Brearley Street has fallen by the wayside. The building is admittedly still standing but is becoming an eyesore with exposed brickwork and some very unsightly metal shutters; I don't know what further use the owners may have in mind for it. 

- The Rocket -

I never had the pleasure - or otherwise - of frequenting the Stags Head although I did venture into the Rocket on one occasion (with Mr D9 during the Hub Marketing Board's 2013 Coventry Caper). Very handy for the railway station, this Warwick Road watering hole was a sports bar in the main and not especially memorable at the time of our visit; it did however have history as a meeting place for 2-Tone artists such as the Specials and the Selecter who would have recorded at the Horizon Studios over the road. Demolition was the ultimate fate here, the Rocket finding itself razed to facilitate a new station frontage. 

- The New Highcroft -

Now here's a place I well remember from childhood, although I hardly ever ventured inside. The (New) Highcroft stood on Old Fallings Lane at the top of Whitgreave Avenue, from where it served the residents of Bushbury Hill and Fallings Park. Living not too far away, many is the time I would have gone past on foot or during car journeys and it was a definitive landmark for the local area. If I remember correctly, it had a short-lived spell as a Wetherspoons (the Moon Under Water) before reverting to the Highcroft moniker and then making way for a care home. 

- The Red Lion -

From Wolverhampton's far north to the eastern edges of Burton upon Trent now as we pause to ponder what became of the Red Lion in Horninglow. A reasonably handsome property in its heyday, it could be found opposite the little parade of shops at Horninglow Green but looked depressingly derelict when I took this picture back in September 2018. As with many in the vicinity, this was a Marston's tied house but has since been turned into a community centre.

- Ring of Bells -

Last but not least comes an example from lovely Ledbury, that charming Herefordshire market town which is noted for its Tudor-styled timber architecture. The Ring of Bells on New Street doesn't quite reach those levels of constructional quaintness and had already closed down by the time of this April 2011 photograph. The premises has latterly been converted for residential use with the sloping side portion removed in order to squeeze in more housing.