Blog Surfer

Tuesday 22 September 2015

#173 The Vaults, Knowle, West Midlands : 1999 to 2014

This is going to be a short post about a pub that I've only been into once...and I don't remember what it was like inside!

We don't visit Knowle very often on the canal and when we do go there we end up in any/all of the other pubs. Our first (and so far, only) visit was on the evening of Sunday 4th April 1999. It was Easter Sunday and we'd finished our regular Easter trip to Stratford and back. So, rather than drink locally in Lapworth we caught a taxi to Knowle to see what the village had to offer.

Although it has a High Street address, the entrance is on one of the side streets (next door to Loch Fyne restaurant). We must have had a pint in there because in those days I didn't take pictures if we didn't go in, but I have no recollection.

We were once again in Knowle on the evening of Sunday 28th September 2014 and, as we were strolling along the High Street, I took this picture.
To be honest, I wasn't sure if it would still be there, but it appears to have gone from strength to strength. (I discovered, whilst researching this entry, that it has been the Solihull CAMRA Pub of the Year nine times since 1992, most recently in 2013!)

The Vaults now advertises itself as a 'Real Ale Bar' that seems to have filled a niche in the area. Despite the major changes to the outside it is interesting to see that the hanging sign is still the same...even if it has been turned around in the intervening 15 years!

Monday 7 September 2015

#172 The Market Hotel, Ellesmere, Shropshire : 1996 to 2014

A trip along the Llangollen Canal is a rare treat and so we've only visited Ellesmere on a few occasions, the first being on the evening of Sunday 25th August 1996.
As I recall it was a fairly bog standard town centre boozer -relatively commonplace 19 years ago!

We did visit Ellesmere again in 2007, but didn't visit The Market Hotel. Our next visit was at lunchtime on Monday 21st April 2014 (Easter Monday).
Not surprisingly, the outside decoration has changed quite a lot in the intervening 18 years, but inside it is still a town boozer having survived (so far) the economic downturn and the smoking ban. A good description of the pub can be found here.