My first ever canal visit to Whitchurch was back in 1981, long before I started taking pictures of the pubs we visit. I have no memories of which pubs we visited.
My next visit to Whitchurch, via the Llangollen Canal, was on the evening of Wednesday 28th August 1996 and The Greyhound was the first pub we came across as it is quite a walk from the canal to the town centre.
Aside from it being outside the town centre, I have no other recollection of it.
It was quite a few years before we were back in Whitchurch, this time on the evening of Wednesday 29th August 2007.
In the intervening 11 years, the signage had been replaced and it was now a Pubmaster pub.
It was another 11 years before we returned on the lunchtime of Thursday 30th August 2018...and this is the scene we discovered.
No only was it closed, but the name had changed to the Cock & Greyhound. At the time, it looked pretty terminal, but according to WhatPub it reopened in April 2019. It had been owned by AtWill Pubs, who appear to have gone out of business and it is difficult to work out what the future is (or the present, even!)
The Atwill Pub Company went into administration, but that didn't mean all their pubs were unviable. Something similar happened to the Cocked Hat in Stockport, which closed and then reopened.
ReplyDeleteOne of their pubs on Merseyside was the natuically-themed Cock & Seaman!
It will, no doubt, be quite a while before we return on the canal, but I'll keep an eye out to see what's happening to it!
ReplyDelete