Sad news this morning. The Crooked House has burned down.
That name would mean nothing to readers of this blog, but the Crooked House – or the Glynne Arms, to use its official name – is famous in the Black Country of England’s West Midlands.
Built in the 18th century, it was known as Britain’s wonkiest pub. Undermined by coal mines beneath it, the building started to tilt in the 19th century but miraculously stayed erect.
It became something of a local tourist attraction. Visitors would be taken there to see the optical illusion of marbles appearing to defy gravity by rolling upwards on the bar. In New Zealand the pub would have been roped off and condemned by health and safety commissars, but the English celebrate such glorious eccentricities.
The above photo of me at the pub door was taken in 1985 when I was on attachment to the Wolverhampton Express and Star as part of a Commonwealth Press Union fellowship. My hosts at the paper were extraordinarily hospitable and insisted that I see the local sights, of which the Crooked House was one. (The legendary Ma Pardoes, where I was introduced to the working-class pub treat known as pork scratchings, was another.)
You didn’t need to down a pint of the potent Banks’s ale to feel slightly disoriented in the Crooked House (though it helped). As the photo shows, the pub wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Harry Potter movie.
Now it’s a pile of rubble and the locals are mourning. What a shame.
I look forward to the article where Prof. Dutta accuses you of promoting problematic drinking ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe name means something to me but then I am Anglo-Scot born here with strong ties there . My parents kept talking of ''home''///it was a mystical land over the seas and far away to me as a kid in late 50s and early 60s...for them old memories, a tough life as for many and the war They came in 1954 on The Captain Cook and arrived in Wellington on a wet and misty August day...transferred to a train to Hamilton and then on by bus from Frankton to Mangakino. I turned up in 1955.-Paul Peters
ReplyDeleteI too arrived on the Capt Cook in 1954, aged 7. I was told that there were a number of breakdowns, and that there was some sort of epidemic on board at some point. All I remember is Curasao, the heat and the tropical smell and the lights of the town reflecting on the water. Also an exciting ride on a bridge that pivoted in midstream to let a boat pass.
ReplyDeleteThe pub...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-66434719
Could it ever be rebuilt to the same? Not in NZ. UK? Maybe.
It is looking like the fire was a bit suspicious with talk of demolition equipment being prepared a week ahead.
ReplyDeleteDevelopers sometimes find risks and fines worth it. Here in NP a decade or so ago a developer/builder (one of THE families here inter-married with other THE families spanning a range of businesses) wanted to move a historic house from the downtown area. It was one of several houses dating from 1850s-60s.
He was told no but waited and moved it anyway. Usual ''outrage'' ( some faux but obligatory) from council sources etc but a fine was well worth it (Can't remember the amount but a mere fraction of the profit to be made). One of the the entitled ''do you know who I am brigade'', well connected.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/12/crooked-pub-house-fighting-back/
ReplyDeleteGreat story Karl. I was talking to an old boy down at my local in Suffolk last week about the pub, which was a mile from his family home in Penn. He too used to take visitors there for a pint. Sadly I never got to visit it.
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