Although we'd stopped at Atherstone on a fairly frequent basis it wasn't until the evening of Monday 4th September 1995 that we ventured into the Barge & Bridge which was situated by the canal bridge just before the Atherstone flight of locks begins its descent.
This was the first time that I'd had a proper chance to explore Atherstone as our previous visits had been quite short. I have no recollection as to what the interior of the pub was like. As I recall, we had a pint and moved on to the numerous other pubs in the town.
There are so many pubs in Atherstone that we didn't revisit the Bridge & Barge until the evening of Tuesday 26th May 2009.
I have a feeling that we didn't go inside because it was closed and up for sale. It had obviously been quite extensively refurbished since 1995, but seemingly to no avail.
On our most recent visit to Atherstone, on the evening of Saturday 29th September 2018, this was the scene that we found.
This was to be our last pub stop for the night as it was on the way back to our boat...but there was no trace! Fortunately the street light is still there as the lone sentinel for a long deceased pub.
I'm actually quite surprised that more of the Atherstone pubs haven't bitten the dust in recent years because it is one of those small towns with far more pubs than you'd expect. Always worth a stop!
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