In the early 1980's The Boat was, technically, my local pub as I lived just around the corner in Minworth for a few months. It sits at the side of the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal and is the last, reasonably safe, overnight mooring before the centre of Birmingham. Over the years, we have been intermittent visitors having passed by more times than we've stopped.
Our first ever boating visit to The Boat was on the evening of Sunday 22nd August 1982, but sadly there's no pictorial record of the visit. I do, however, have a photo taken the next day as we made our way down the windswept Curdworth Locks.
Our next visit to The Boat was in the year that I'd decided to start taking a picture of each pub we visited. This was on the evening of Wednesday 30th July 1986.
Back in those days it had a cosy lounge and a fairly standard bar with pool table and dart board, but (as I recall) didn't do food.
Our boat, Emma Jane, moved away from the Midlands for a number of years and so we didn't stop there again until the evening of Tuesday 5th September 1995, close to the end of the journey bringing Emma Jane back to the Midlands.
On the outside, a complete transformation from a fairly standard Ansells pub into a 'Big Steak' pub!
We returned less than a year later, on the lunchtime of Friday 31st May 1996. This was a pit-stop on an 'epic' journey that took us from Fazeley Junction to Catherine-de-Barnes on the Grand Union Canal in a day (10 hours 20 minutes travelling time!).
Even in just 9 months, part of the exterior signage had disappeared and the paint was starting to peel!
It took us another 10 years before we came back to The Boat. This was mainly because we'd worked out that we could travel from Birmingham city centre to The Kingsley or Curdworth in a day's boating so we sailed on by The Boat on many occasions.
This was at lunchtime on Thursday 8th June 2006 and we still made it into the centre of Birmingham by evening - a 5 hour journey! Another complete transformation of the outside of the pub including a small extension at the front.
We returned at lunchtime on Thursday 6th June 2010 as part of what was, essentially, a repeat of our 2006 journey - this time it took us 5 hours 20 minutes to get into Birmingham!
Not too much of a change apart from the sheltered smoking area that has been added.
This next picture was taken on the afternoon of Sunday 11th May 2014 as I happened to be in the area following a Craft Fair at the Brook Marston Hotel. (There seemed to be little likelihood of us stopping here in the near future, so I thought I'd add a photo to the collection.)
Yet another external transformation. The smoking area remained, but the new extension has been radically altered.
Having predicted that we wouldn't be stopping here in the near future, our next visit was on the evening of Sunday 14th June 2015.
Little change in a year. The internal layout of The Boat has hardly changed over the years, but it has been refurbished several times. The Boat has its own website and will hopefully be able to survive as a proper pub that does some food.
It really is fascinating to see the changes in a pub (and in photography) over the years Peter - thanks for posting. Be interested to know if it ever did real ale (keg now).
ReplyDeleteI knew I'd been to Minworth, but that was the Kingley (now Cuttle Bridge).
Cheers
Not sure about the real ale...I'm a lager drinker so don't tend to remember the Real Ale offerings!
ReplyDeleteAs well as The Boat in Minworth, there's also the Hare & Hounds which will feature in the coming months.