#142 Speed the Plough, Tibberton, Worcestershire : 2008 to 2013

Tibberton is a small village just north-east of Worcester on the banks of the Worcester & Birmingham Canal. I've visited Tibberton on quite a few occasions, both on the canal and to visit friends, but I'm not entirely sure when I first visited the pub.

Our first canal related visit was at lunchtime on Wednesday 28th May 2008.

As I recall, it had recently been taken over by new management and I think we had a warming meal on a cool rainy day. It felt like a cosy local, but was quiet at lunchtime.

It was another five years before we were back, again at lunchtime, on Sunday 12th May 2013.

Speed the Plough was again under new management and was, again, a welcome refuge on a cool, damp Spring day. Together with the new management, the outside had been completely redecorated and also rebranded Marston's from the previous Banks's. The inside had also been redecorated, but had lost none of its cosy feel.

Digbeth Update

It is almost three years since I went around the Digbeth area taking pictures of the surviving pubs. I was in the area this week taking pictures, mostly non-pub related and I noticed that in the passing three years very little has changed, at least as far as the pubs go (Lots of other things have changed, but the pubs seem to be quite stable for the time being). However there are a couple of examples that are worth reporting.

Back in 2011, the pub that was formerly The Carpenters Arms had been turned into the Moon Shisha Lounge (see #013 on this blog). Unfortunately that has now also closed. I'm not sure when it happened, but I don't think there is much chance of anything pub related returning to this site.

The other story is much more upbeat. In 2011 I wasn't sure whether The Woodman was still open nor what the future held for it (see #056 on this blog).

After I wrote that blog it was closed for some time, but since September 2013 it has been restored to its former glory and open for business again. I haven't been back in, yet, but the details can be seen here on their website.

Although it currently stands a bit on its own, hopefully, the development of the surrounding area and the building of HS2 will lead to a secure future for this magnificent building.

For any other Digbeth related information, I always refer to the excellent blog Digbeth is Good.

#141 Oddfellows Arms (now Kiss), Stratford-upon-Avon, Warks : 1996 to 2013

For several years we were regular visitors to Stratford-upon-Avon as it was our regular Easter destination on our narrowboat Emma Jane from 1996 to 2011. There are lots of pubs in the town making it an ideal venue for a pub crawl.

The Oddfellows Arms was one of the first pub that we ever visited in Stratford as it was on the way from what became our regular mooring (above the locks, away from the centre) to the pubs in the centre.

This was on the evening of Friday 5th April 1996 (Good Friday) after a trying day's boating. Our day had started badly when Emma Jane refused to start. The nearest boatyard was a couple of miles away and as neither of us had a mobile phone in those days we walked there! The engineer gave us a lift back and got us going, but we'd only got time to get to the boatyard before lunch - fortunately there was also a pub there!

It was a long afternoon boating from Wooton Wawen to Stratford with us mooring up at 7:50 pm! I'm guessing that we were quite thirsty and went into the first pub we found - the Oddfellows Arms. As I recall it was a very cosy, pleasant pub.

It was another seven years before we revisited the Oddfellows Arms, this time on the evening of Saturday 19th April 2003.

As I recall, it was pretty much unchanged, but the signs indicate that food was now available. Also, the outside seating now had a very low retaining wall.

The next visit was on the evening of Saturday 7th April 2007.

The Oddfellows Arms had been refurbished inside and out, but not to our taste - it had become more modern and soul-less! That was the last time we actually stepped inside and, although we did walk by a few times, it wasn't sufficiently inviting to tempt us back in!

I popped back to Stratford last year to take a few photos of the town and this is the sight I came across.

It was the afternoon of Thursday 5th September 2013 and the Oddfellows Arms has been transformed into Kiss! I didn't go in.

Judging from the most recent review on Beer in the Evening it doesn't look as though this will be here for too much longer. This appears to be going the way of many pubs over the past few years; as the market contracts, the back street pubs seem to be the ones disappearing, especially when there are so many others nearby in a town like Stratford. Sad, but currently almost inevitable! 

#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. 

#139 Ye Olde Talbot Hotel, Worcester : 1997 to 2013

As I was going through my photos I discovered another 'Ye Olde' pub, so I thought I'd run them all together! This week it's Ye Olde Talbot Hotel in Worcester which we first visited on the evening of Monday 26th May 1997.

We had navigated down the Worcester & Birmingham Canal and moored at Diglis Basin for the night. Normally, when in Worcester, we would take the opportunity to go for a bit of a pub crawl, but not this time! One of our regular crew, who likes his real ale, found the beer very much to his liking and was very reluctant to move on. Fortunately it was a welcoming, cosy place so it wasn't too much of a hardship to stay for most of the session.

In the intervening years we've been back to Worcester several times, but have not revisited Ye Olde Talbot Hotel. However, on our last visit we did walk by and I took this picture.

This was taken on the evening of Saturday 11th May 2013, shortly after witnessing Wigan's historic FA Cup triumph. We didn't go inside, but the place has obviously changed quite a bit in the past 16 years, as you would expect.

#138 Ye Olde Seven Stars, Kidderminster, Worcestershire : 2008 to 2013

As reported previously, we've only ever stopped in Kidderminster twice despite passing through on the canal on many occasions.

Our first stop was on the evening of Monday 26th May 2008 and Ye Olde Seven Stars was one of the pubs we visited on out pub crawl around the town.

As usual, I don't remember too much about the inside as we only had one pint there.

On our second visit to Kidderminster, at lunchtime on Thursday 16th May 2013, we only went in one pub, but we did stroll around the town centre so I could get pictures of how the pubs had changed.

Externally Ye Olde Seven Stars has had a complete makeover. 

In doing the background research for this post I've discovered that this is the oldest pub in Kidderminster and that I made a mistake in my blog entry about The Red Man (#127).

It was Ye Olde Seven Stars that allowed (in fact encouraged) people to eat their takeaway meals inside whilst enjoying their pint and, judging by the signage, they still do. The pub has its own website, but I'm not sure when it was last updated.

#137 Ye Olde No.3, Little Bollington, Cheshire : 1991 to 2013

Being based in the Midlands means that we didn't often get to navigate the canals 'oop north', but since we've been hiring boats we can now explore further afield.

Back in 1991 we embarked on a journey to take our boat Emma Jane from Adlington (near Wigan) to her ultimate destination of Cowley Peachey (near Uxbridge).

One of the pubs we stopped at was Ye Olde No. 3 at Little Bollington on the Bridgewater Canal.

This was the view from our mooring on the evening of Sunday 21st July 1991. I don't recall anything about that visit, but we did spend the whole evening there so food must have been available.

We have been past the pub in the intervening years on trips that took us to Manchester (and back to Lapworth) in 2000 and 2010. Both times we stopped at Lymm as it offers more pubs to choose from.

Our Easter trip in 2013 was from Preston Brook to Manchester (and back) which gave us the opportunity to revisit Ye Olde No. 3.

This was the view from our mooring at lunchtime on Saturday 30th March 2013. Fewer changes than you might expect in 22 years, but the electricity pylons are all still in place!

This is the view from the front of the pub. As we walked into the pub, suddenly it all came back and I recognised the place! It didn't seem to have changed in 22 years. It has a cosy interior with lots of canal memorabilia. The food was good and I was left wondering why we'd not stopped here in previous years!