#046 Queens Arms, Highgate, Birmingham : 1998 to 2021 (RIP)

Continuing with my review of pubs in the Eastside of Birmingham and, at the risk of becoming like another blog (the excellent Closed Pubs), I'll continue to record the demise of more pubs!

This time it is the turn of the Queen's Arms and this is what I wrote in 2011: -

"In 1998 the Queen's Arms on Barford Street was a pub I'd never been in, but had passed many times to and from work.

A few years after this picture was taken I did actually venture in to the Queen's Arms one evening. Inside it was a simple, basic pub with a handful of drinkers in the bar. The room on the right was the only bar that was open and I was concerned at the time about the prospects for its survival as this was a Saturday night.

However, it was the site of a curious meeting. Sitting at the bar was a bloke who said to me, "Don't you do the quiz at the Colebrook?" I didn't recognise him (one of the 'curses' of being a quiz master - they all know your name, but there are too many of them to possibly remember their's!) but he'd been a regular quizgoer until he moved to this side of the city. It is less than 10 miles between the two pubs, but in a city the size of Birmingham what are the chances of such a meeting?

Moving on to 2011 and it looks like the demise of the Queen's Arms is almost complete.

Still attractively painted on the outside, it is currently closed and has been this way for quite some time." 

At that time it was difficult to know whether the Queen's Arms would be resurrected. A drive past in 2018 didn't really resolve the situation.

More boarded up than before and the lanterns had been removed, but also some repainting had been done!

Finally, we come to 2021 and I think it is safe to say the the Queen's Arms is no more, despite the fact that it is still there and largely unchanged!
 

The 'For Sale' sign is a bit of a giveaway, but it is being offered on the basis of -  "We are of the opinion that the property is suitable to be utilised on the basis of a variety of uses, including a shisha lounge, restaurant, public house or multi occupancy residential." and all for the small sum of £440,000 for the freehold - details here.

Somehow, I don't think this will be a pub again any time soon!

#068 The Ruin, Floodgate Street, Digbeth : 1998 to 2018 (Revisited)

When I first went around Digbeth and its environs in 1998 I came across many back-street boozers that I'd been completely unaware of previously. Horan's Tavern was one such boozer. This is how it looked in 1998.

When I returned in 2011 it was obvious that it had changed hands, changed name and then closed down.

Shortly after this photo I was passing by again and noticed that it had reopened and then closed down yet again...but I didn't have my camera. By this time I was convinced that it would never re-open, again.

There's one thing this blog is good at demonstrating, though...that I'm no Mystic Meg! 

I'd noticed that it had indeed re-opened a few months ago as I was passing by on other business (no camera!) and was reminded of this in an excellent write up by Ian Clarkson on his Life After Football blog. (Well worth a read!) So I finally got off my backside to bring you this...The Ruin.

The only reasons that I can think that it may well be viable are firstly, Digbeth is still a 'happening' place especially close to the Custard Factory and secondly, South & City College have opened a new campus almost next door to the pub which must be a benefit. Hopefully, it will continue to thrive.

More pictures can be seen on the Closed Pubs website.

#140 The Tontine, Stourport-on-Severn, Worcestershire : 1987 to 2013 (RIP)

As previously noted, Stourport-on-Severn has many pubs and, back in 1987 The Tontine was one of the outstanding pubs in the town.

This photo was taken on the evening of Monday 6th July 1987 after a slightly fraught journey up the River Severn from Worcester. This was our first boating trip up the Severn and, having left Worcester's Diglis Basin at 3pm, we'd not taken the flow of the river into account making the journey much longer than we'd expected! We almost didn't make it to Stourport for the evening because the last lock on the Severn, Lincomb Lock, was technically closed for the night. We were in luck, though, because one of the regular trip boats was due to pass through and after some negotiation, the lock keeper agreed to let us through!

We moored on the river at Stourport and The Tontine was just a short walk away up the carefully manicured bank side. I don't remember too much about the inside other than it was a large pub with lots of canal pictures and memorabilia.

It was another 10 years before we returned to The Tontine on the evening of Tuesday 27th May 1997.

As far as I recall there were no significant changes, but inside were signs of a general decline.

We were in Stourport again in 1999, but didn't visit The Tontine. However, I took this photo on the afternoon of Tuesday 1st June 1999 as we passed through the locks up from the Severn into Stourport Basin.

Since then we've passed through Storuport-on-Severn several times and The Tontine had been closed for most of them. According to Closed Pubs it has been closed since 2001.

Our most recent visit to the town was the premature end of our journey because the Severn was closed because it was running very fast and high from the heavy rain a few days earlier. This gave me some time to take photos of the town, including The Tontine.

These pictures were taken in the afternoon of Thursday 16th May 2013. From the outside The Tontine is largely unchanged, unsurprising as it is a listed building, but it has been split into flats for residential use.

The Tontine is an unusual name and I'm indebted to Andrew Denny and his Granny Buttons blog for this explanation: -

How did the Tontine Hotel come to be called?  A Tontine Will is defined here - it's effectively when a group of men pool their inheritances and the last man standing gets the lot.  But that's not the original name.  According to a Stourport Tourism Leaflet:

The Tontine Hotel was constructed as the Areley Inn in 1772 and gave accommodation to merchants and travellers. It was a grand place with a ballroom and several reception rooms.

Another history of The Tontine can be found here.