#112 The Horseshoe, Kings Heath, Birmingham : 1987 to 2012

I'm not sure whether I'd visited The Horseshoe before, but this is the first picture I took.

This was on the lunchtime of Saturday 4th July 1987 at the start of a two-week trip that took us down to Worcester, up to Middlewich and included my first trip through Harecastle Tunnel.

We didn't return for another nine years, largely because Emma Jane was moored 'oop north' and then 'darn sarf' for the intervening years!

This was on the evening of Saturday 25th May 1996 and it wasn't our intended destination for the night, but because of a delay at the Shirley Drawbridge, we couldn't make it all the way into Birmingham before nightfall. We only had one pint here before going into Moseley for a pub crawl. In those days The Horseshoe was a small friendly local with two rooms. They did good lunchtime food, but it was never an ideal overnight stop.

Next year and we were there TWICE!

Friday 30th May 1997 (Lunchtime)

Thursday 4th September 1997 (Lunchtime)

Both of these visits were the final lunchtime stops of our holiday, leaving us a four hour journey back to our moorings.

We were back again a couple of years later and there were more changes to the exterior of the pub.

Another lunchtime stop at the end of another canal trip, this time to Leek on the Caldon Canal - Thursday 9th September 1999. The Horseshoe had been extensively refurbished and was now no longer a Bass pub.

Our final canal visit was a year later at the end of a trip that had taken us to Manchester.

This was on Friday 8th September 2000. In subsequent years, we stopped visiting The Horseshoe for a couple of reasons. The first is that the moorings became increasingly difficult as the bank became more and more overgrown. The second reason was that we were getting there too early and The Drawbridge at Shirley became our final lunchtime stop of choice.

Although we didn't stop there again, I've got a couple of photos taken in passing.

This is the view from the canal and was taken on Friday 25th May 2009. At this time The Horseshoe looked to be closed.

However, when I was driving by last year, I found that The Horseshoe is alive and well!

This was on the afternoon of Monday 3rd December 2012 as I was testing out my new camera. It appears that The Horseshoe has been refurbished again, but I've not set foot inside since 2000 so I can't comment on the interior!