#286 Brasenose Arms, Cropredy, Oxfordshire : 1998 to 2021

 Trips along the Southern Oxford Canal are quite rare for us and so the first time I ever visited Cropredy was on the evening of Wednesday 2nd September 1998 - just 18 years into my canal adventuring!

There are two pubs in Cropredy and on this first visit, we sampled both, but I'll concentrate on the Brasenose Arms this time.

Do I have any recollection as to what it was like? Err...no! Looks like it was an M & B pub from the lantern above the entrance.

Our next visit was a lunchtime stop on Tuesday 24th August 2004 on a trip that started out in Oxford.

It would appear, from my image library, that we again visited both pubs in the village. We probably ate in the Red Lion and had a final pint in the Brasenose Arms before setting off again.

All new exterior signage and it would appear to be one of Enterprise Inns stable of pubs (M & B lantern has also gone).

Our most recent visit was on Tuesday 18th May 2021, the day after the second relaxation that allowed eating and drinking INSIDE pubs and restaurants.

On this occasion, I chose the Brasenose Arms because it had been serving a large garden of customers with food since the first relaxation to outdoor drinking/dining and so, I reasoned, they'd be best set up to serve us a decent evening meal. If only I'd paid more attention to the website, which clearly stated (I saw later) that Tuesdays were the chef's days off. So, no food, also they'd taken the decision not to open the pub, just garden service!

Well, we tried the Red Lion, but not surprisingly, it was fuly booked. So, it was back to the Brasenose Arms for an evening of not-cold-enough lager, crisps, nuts and scratchings! Could've been worse, at least we managed a few pints!

From the outside, the pub appears to have changed little, but it is no longer part of Enterprise Inns, who are now part of Stonegate pubs. As far as I can ascertain it is now privately owned.

It's Bandwagon Time!

 To misquote The Bard of Avon, "Is this a bandwagon which I see before me, Come let me jump aboard!" Ever since the 'glorious' twelfth (of April) any reputable (and a few disreputable) beer/pub blogger has been revelling in and reporting on our new found freedom to have a proper pub pint in a proper pub...garden!

Who am I to buck this trend? Yesterday I took my first steps back towards normality with a lunchtime session at the Sacks of Potatoes pub by Aston University. I haven't been to 'The Sack' for many years, but I have previously reported on it on this blog (#205).

We chose here because our regular local, the Country Girl in Selly Oak, hasn't yet reopened (26th April). We booked online, but it was possible to just turn up.

This was the scene, a typically beautiful sunny day in Brum...with a bit of a chill wind! It is so long since my last visit, I was convinced that they'd moved the pub as it wasn't quite where I thought it should be!

On arrival we were shown to our table in the outdoor smoking dining area and asked to fill in their track and trace forms (as neither of us have the app!). Service was swift and efficient...and the Carling was as good as ever!

The limited food offering was just right for us, although on another day I may have bemoaned the lack of a proper sandwich...but not today, I was just happy to be back out in the real world!

Drinking at home and with friends is fine, but you don't get the banter with bar staff or the unexpected (brief) conversation with a stranger (and Rangers fan) about how much longer Stevie G might stay north of the border before taking over at Liverpool. Nor do you get the frisson of excitement/apprehension as when a group of young Asian men and women turn up without booking and just sit down at a table. After a brief chat with the bar staff, it wasn't a problem! Reassuringly reasonable...all's well (so far) in publand!

Our stroll back to New Street Station took us past one of the seemingly less loved of Birmingham's statues - Bruce Williams 1996 sculpture of Tony Hancock.
 

This is my retouched version because in real life it is looking somewhat shabby after many years of neglect.

And so to home to spend the rest of the day sleepily thinking, "Why did I have that fourth pint?" Worth it!

The Harborne Run

As we're still living in the time of coronavirus I thought that I'd combine my (semi) regular exercise with more photography/artistry and put together a virtual pub crawl.

Since the loss of Alan Winfield, there haven't been many tales of epic (or otherwise) pub crawls that I've seen recently. We get write-ups of our Proper Pub Days Out, but these are genteel affairs compared to the mythical pub crawls of yesteryear.

Friends of mine who are native Brummies used to take part in the Harborne Run every Christmas Eve, but that was before I knew them, so I've never taken part in it. I shall attempt a pictorial re-creation of what would still constitue an epic alcoholic journey through Harborne...assuming that all of these pubs re-open after the pandemic.

Personally, I'd start at the 'Top' end of Harborne, but I've read of people starting at the other end. The first two pubs on the old crawl are no longer in existence - the Duke of York and the Kings Arms (see here). Some people may choose to start in The Bell (a lovely pub), but I feel that it is a bit too far off the beaten track. This would be my starting point for the 'New' Harborne Run.

The Vine - May 2020

Not long after the demise of the Duke of York and the Kings Arms, The Vine was boarded up and looked like it was going as well. Fortunately, it got a complete refurb and was expanded. It is now one of M&B's 'Sizzling Pubs'.

Moving swiftly on and just around the corner is The New Inn.

The New Inn - May 2020

This was the subject of my previous post, so there's little more to say about this lovely Marston's pub.

Next on the journey is The Junction which we've accessed from the road to the left (below).

The Junction - May 2020

Over recent years, The Junction has undergone various guises - it was a 'proper' M&B boozer, then an O'Neill's, followed by gastro-ification (is that a word?) and now it is one of M&B's Castle pubs. (A little less gastro; a bit more pub!)

Now we've reached the main body of the Harborne Run. Next up is the Slug & Lettuce (on the left from the view above).

Slug & Lettuce - May 2020

I haven't been in here for many years, usually because it is heaving whenever we've been passing. This is part of the Stonegate group of pubs and is a typical Slug & Lettuce. I'm fairly sure that this wasn't one of the original destinations on the Harborne Run.

On the other side of the High Street and a litle bit further down the hill is the other Stonegate pub - the Harborne Stores. (This is next door to Harborne's very own micropub, The Paper Duck, which I've decided to leave out of the itinerary for purely selfish reasons!)

Harborne Stores - May 2020

This is an 'old school' boozer and is always packed. It is usually like stepping back in time to how pubs used to be with regard to the atmosphere.

Further down the High Street we take a right before The Schoolyard (aka Harborne Clock Tower) and head a short way up York Street to the White Horse.

The Schoolyard - aka Harborne Clock Tower (not a pub) - May 2020

White Horse - May 2020

This is another Harborne gem of a pub which has it's own on-site brewery (Ostler's Ales). It is a perennial Good Beer Guide entrant, and rightly so (occasionally, they even manage to obtain a barrel of Batham's Bitter!)

Now, the itinerary could go in one of two directions; up York Street to the Hop Garden or back to the High Street (my choice!). Diagonally opposite York Street is where we'll find the Brewer's Social (another pub not on the original Harborne Run).

Brewer's Social - May 2020

In recent history this was a cake shop and café which morphed into a pop-up pub run by Sadler's of Lye in the Black Country. I missed visiting as that incarnation and then it shut. Subsequently, Sadler's were bought out by Halewood and the local brewery closed down, so I didn't expect it to reappear, but here it is. Definitely worth adding to the route of the crawl.

Next, and we've almost got to the bottom of the High Street, it's The Plough.

The Plough - May 2020

I have mixed feelings about The Plough. In the 'good old days' this was a proper pub with a small, intimate bar and service for the 'lounge' (and 'garden') was through a hatch. Almost 20 years ago it closed and after extensive remodelling The Plough reappeared as an upmarket gastro pub, losing all of it's character in the process. Despite my reservations, though, it is a very popular venue and during the current crisis they are serving takeaway coffee and food.

Across the road is the final pub on the High Street; the Green Man.

Green Man - May 2020

I'm sure that this is the pub you've all been waiting for. What tour of suburban Birmingham is complete without a visit to an Ember Inn?

Again, we're faced with a dilemma - nine pubs visited (ten if you've been in The Paper Duck) - and there are two left to go, but in different directions, so it is unlikely that you'd do both.

Closest, and a five minute walk around the back of the Green Man on Metchley Lane is the Hop Garden (formerly The Sportsman).

Hop Garden - May 2020

I haven't been here for so many years that I have no idea what it is like inside, but it seems to have beome another real ale 'paradise' and they are offering takeaway beer sales during the lockdown. Hopefully that will be enough for them to survive into the future.

However, if you don't fancy that, from the Green Man you could take a ten minute walk down Harborne Road to The White Swan.

The White Swan - May 2020

 Back in the day this used to be known colloquially as the Dirty Duck (not to be confused with The Duck on Hagley Road which for many years, in the 70's and 80's, was an oasis of real ale in the Ansell's/M&B desert that Birmingham was in those days!). The main hanging pub sign did, for a while, reflect the dual name of the pub, but it has now been somewhat gentrified and is part of M&B's Premium Country Pubs collection.

So, there you have it, a modern-day Harborne Run fit for the 21st Century and, assuming they all survive, an unrivalled selection of pub diversity, in such a small space, than you could find anywhere else in the country.

For more information on Harborne and it's pub history (including the Harborne Run) you can check out the Wikipedia page!

#003 Goose at the OVT, Selly Oak : 1996 to 2020 (Revisited)

The lockdown continues and you find me, still in Selly Oak, with another pub that has changed it's name, several times, over the years. This is what I wrote in 2011: -

This is a strange one! When I first visited this pub as a student in the late 70's it was called The Bournbrook Hotel. It was usually full of students (no surprise) and was made up of several different rooms. It was a long time ago and I don't remember it too clearly!

Some years later it was refurbished (keeping many of the interior features) and renamed the Old Varsity Tavern. It was still popular with students and usually quite busy. Then (and I don't know when) it became the Farce & Firkin at the same time as quite a few other Birmingham pubs were rebranded as Firkin pubs. This picture is from 1996 as we did a pub crawl of Selly Oak on one of our canal trips!

At some stage it became the Farce & Firkin at the OVT, but this isn't shown on the pub in this picture.

As I live not too far away, I occasionally enter this establishment, but I can't say it is one of my favourite venues. Sometime later (again, I don't know when) it was refurbished and rebranded as the Goose at the OVT which is Mitchells & Butlers attempt to match Wetherspoon's. The pub is now a 'beer barn' selling cheap beer to any and all who can't afford to pay the inflated prices in other pubs!

This is how it looks now. Like many, it looks pretty much the same as ever on the outside, but inside its very different from 'the good old days'! I don't think they make use of the two upper floors (which is a waste) and notice the buddleia growing in the upstairs window. Still, I shouldn't complain too much at least it has survived the 'cull' of Selly Oak pubs which has taken away The Brook, Dog & Partridge, Great Oak and others that I never really knew!

(Since 2011, The Gunbarrels has also bitten the dust!)

The Goose at the OVT still isn't a place we visit very often, but here is how it looked in June 2014.

In the intervening years it had undergone a subtle exterior refurbishment, probably the first as a Stonegate pub (part of a deal that saw 333 pubs sold by Mitchells & Butlers in 2010). This has revealed the original embossed stonework saying 'Holt Brewery Co Ltd' and 'BOURNBROOK HOTEL' over the entrance.

And so we move on to my recent stroll up and down the Bristol Road in Selly Oak (April 2020).

It has undergone another exterior redecoration in one of the typical (for this current era) pastel shades, which I prefer to the previous scheme. For the first time in a while I was accosted whilst taking the photo by a man who crossed the road to ask what I was taking pictures of and why! It was the pub gaffer, who just happened to be returning home, and he was happy when I explained what I do.

It is a magnificent building and I do hope it survives as a pub for many years to come.

#005 Bristol Pear, Selly Oak : 1996 to 2020 (Revisited)

I don't visit the Bristol Pear frequently, but this hostelry has the dubious honour of being the last pub I drank in before the current lockdown!

I have made occasional visits over the past few years, but this is what I wrote in 2011: -

I first visited The Station in the late 70's when I was a student. My vague recollection is that it was a pub for locals and full of 'old' people (at a guess, about the age I am now!) so I wasn't a frequent visitor.

As I lived in the area, over the years I visited a few more times and it was completely refurbished some years later. During this period, The Station was a regular stop off for a pint whilst our Chinese takeaway was being prepared on a Saturday evening. During this phase of its existence it was reasonably welcoming and catered for all ages. 

The picture below is from 1996 when I was visiting close to the end of our canal trip to Llangollen and Chester on the evening of Thursday 5th September 1996.

Not many years after this the pub was completely revamped into an 'It's a Scream' pub and renamed the Bristol Pear. This was Mitchells & Butlers way of making student friendly pubs, which seemed to work. On the odd occasions we visited it was full and loud, but strangely the layout was the same as before! The picture below is from the evening of Thursday 3rd June 2004 at the end of a short trip exploring some of the hidden canals in Birmingham.

Finally we come to the afternoon of Thursday 21st July 2011. I'm still an infrequent visitor, but it survives by being apparently what the students want, so who am I to argue?


It's a funny thing; when I was young this pub was full of old people, but now I'm 'old' it's full of young people so it has never been one of my favourite pubs...oh for a time machine.


I'm not sure if The Station was one of The Pub Curmudgeon's haunts when he too was a student in Brum, but I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his help and encouragement with this blog and I'll finish with a story that will not help his blood pressure!

The last time I was in the Bristol Pear was on a Saturday evening and we were served our lager in plastic pints. We were told that this rule had come in after some trouble (unspecified at that time) and plastics must be used for beer after 7pm in all pubs in Selly Oak! The next pub we went to was The S'oak (a new establishment) where again we were served our pints in plastics. This time we found out the cause - in separate incidents someone had been glassed and someone had been badly cut after falling onto a broken glass. So maybe the precautions were warranted...except...the person had been glassed with a Coke glass and the person who'd fallen fell onto a wine glass. Neither of these types of glass had been banned!
I don't know if these restrictions are still in place as I've no real desire to go back and drink out of plastic!

I can confirm that the practice of drinking out of 'plastics' was a thankfully, short-lived phenomenon!

The next time I took photos was on the afternoon of Friday 6th June 2014.

As it happens, very little had changed in the passing three years.

Moving on to the time of Covid-19 and the first lockdown, I took these photos on my permitted exercise on the afternoon of Wednesday 8th April 2020.

 That is quite a refurbishment! The 'Scream!' pubs were bought by Stonegate (from Mitchells & Butlers) in 2010, but they ran them in a similar fashion for several years. The Bristol Pear is now part of the 'Common Room' brand within Stonegate (other brands include Slug & Lettuce, Walkabout, Yates to name a few). I do like the new look, but to my mind, you can't beat the classic décor from 1996 when it was still The Station!

#205 Sacks of Potatoes, Gosta Green, Birmingham : 1986 to 2015

The Sacks of Potatoes is a pub that will be familiar to any student (past & present) of Aston University as it sits in the middle of the campus. It is a pub I've visited on many occasions not involved with canal trips, but the only pictures I take are whilst on holiday (mainly!)

We start our journey at lunchtime on Thursday 31st July 1986.

We'd moored at Aston Junction and were nearing the end of a two week journey that had taken us to Nottingham. In those days the Sacks of Potatoes was a cosy, proper pub that did pub grub.

We didn't venture back there again until lunchtime on Wednesday 6th September 1995.

The reason for such a long delay was because our boat, Emma Jane, had spent two years up North, then another five years down South and this visit was towards the end of the journey bringing her back to the Midlands. In those few years, the Sacks of Potatoes has been extended quite a bit, much of it at the back. It wasn't quite as cosy as before, but it was still a proper pub!

It wasn't too long before our return at lunchtime on Wednesday 3rd September 1997, again mooring at Aston Junction and again returning from a trip that had taken us to Nottingham.

From this view you can see the considerable sideways extension of the pub compared to the 1986 view.

We were back again for another lunchtime stop on Sunday 29th August 1999, this time at the start of a trip that would take us along the Caldon Canal for the first time.

It had undergone a refurb in the intervening years and it was no longer labelled as an M&B pub, although it still was part of the Mitchell's & Butlers group. It was around this time that I completely lost track of who owned what pub and what beer you might expect to see! Sadly, the picture had disappeared from the side wall!

We were back again almost exactly a year later for lunch on Sunday 27th August 2000.

No real changes to report, the colour difference being caused by bright August Bank Holiday sun in 1999 versus Bank Holiday gloom in 2000!

It was quite a few years before we came back to the Sacks; almost exactly ten years had elapsed, it was another lunch stop on Saturday 28th August 2010.

Externally it had been repainted and there were many more seats (three years since the smoking ban), but other than that the pub was largely unchanged. In fact, most of the significant changes were going on around the pub as Aston University underwent a massive transformation.

The next picture is from Friday 6th June 2014, not related to a canal trip.

I was out by the university taking pictures, so, as we hadn't been there for a few years, I thought I'd get a new picture for the blog. Little had changed, but the hanging baskets now contained real flowers!

Ironically, we were back the next year for a lunchtime stop on Sunday 14th June 2015.

The Sacks of Potatoes wasn't our original destination for this lunch stop, but The Bull (#073) was closed on Sundays, so here we were again!

Despite the changes all around and the expansion of the pub in the nineties it still feels like a proper pub which is something of a rarity in this day and age! It is now part of the Stonegate Group of pubs (not sure when it transferred from Mitchell's & Butlers!) and the website is here.

 

#158 The Great Stone, Northfield, Birmingham : 1953 to 2014

The Great Stone Inn has stood on this site for centuries and it is named for a huge boulder that used to stand on the corner. This boulder is a glacial erratic, and was dropped by the ice as it retreated in the last ice age! The stone is now housed in the 17^th Century pound, which is adjacent to the pub – this sandstone enclosure was where stray animals were kept until their owners paid a fee to get them back.

© Phyllis Nicklin 1953

This photo (along with two others of the Great Stone) was taken in 1953 by Phyllis Nicklin. She took many pictures of Birmingham through the 1950's and 1960's which can be found as part of University of Birmingham's Chrysalis Project. This is a fascinating archive for those of us who love old pictures of places we know. My only regret is that Phyllis Nicklin wasn't as obsessed with pubs as I am!

So, from a time before I was born, how does the pub look now?

Not very different as you can see apart from the slight name change. This picture was taken in the afternoon of Friday 15th August 2014. The boulder is behind the gate by the red car.

It is many years since I visited The Great Stone for a drink, probably when I was a student. In those days it was an M&B pub, but I see now that it is part of the Stonegate Pub Company.

#156 Gosta Green, Aston, Birmingham : 1986 to 2014

I realise that I've neglected this blog somewhat over the past few months, but I'm back now with a new batch of pubs to add to the list.

First we'll start with a pub that I've not visited too often, but it makes an interesting case study. The first time I visited as part of a canal trip was at lunchtime on Thursday 31st July 1986 (although I'm fairly sure that I'd drunk there before!).

Back then it was called The Pot of Beer and, beyond the fact that it is almost on the Aston University campus I don't recall too much about it.

Our next visit wasn't until lunchtime on Wednesday 6th September 1995 which was plenty of time to have the pub rebranded as the Faculty & Firkin.

Apart from the new signs, the exterior of the pub remained largely the same as before. Being part of the Firkin chain made it a slightly more appealing prospect, but again I don't remember too much about the interior.

Finally we move on to 2014 and another new name for the pub, the Gosta Green.

On this occasion - the afternoon of Friday 6th June 2014 - I didn't go in as I was only in the area on another matter. The Gosta Green is now part of the 'Scream' pub brand which is specifically aimed at students. The added hanging baskets make for a more attractive look to the place.

And finally, here's a Photo Digital Art view of the pub from the other end.

© Photo Digital Art 2014