The Queen's Head at Stoke Pound is in the perfect position for weary boaters on the Worcester & Birmingham Canal. If you're heading up from Worcester it is situated in the small gap between the six Stoke Locks and the daunting prospect of the thirty (yes, 30!) Tardebigge Locks so you have a decision to make...should we stay...or should we go on? If you're heading down from Birmingham the decision is much easier...knackered after 30 locks...you stay!
Our first visit was a lunchtime stop on Sunday 5th July 1987 as we headed down the canal towards Worcester. According to the log, it had taken us 4 hours 10 minutes to get from The Crown at Alvechurch to the Queen's Head...a pretty decent time to do the thirty locks with a crew of four.
I don't remember a great deal about the pub other that it was a 'gastropub' even before the term became official in 1991 (according to Wikipedia). It was the definite place to go to for Sunday lunch in that part of Worcestershire!
Our trips along that part of the canal system are quite sporadic and we didn't return, heading towards Worcester, until the evening of Sunday 25th May 1997. (Picture taken next am)
This photo shows what a superb location it is and it was still a very popular place for food and drink.
We returned at lunchtime on Monday 12th August 2002.
We were taking a boat painting trip so we'd interchange travelling with some boat painting as and when the weather allowed. The previous night we had been moored below the Stoke Locks, so after turning, we made the short journey to the Queen's Head for lunch before tackling some more painting and the thirty Tardebigge Locks...again!
Our next visit was on the evening of Wednesday 28th May 2008 on our way up from Worcester.
Again, there had been further external redecoration and refurbishment, most notably the addition of an awning, presumably to shelter the smokers as this was less that a year since the smoking ban had been implemented in England.
It was another five years before we were back on the evening of Sunday 12th May 2013...and this is what we found!
Disaster! Pub very definitely closed, but was this a permanent situation? A closer inspection revealed that it was undergoing a major refubishment following a change of ownership. Long term, that was good news, but in the more immediate short term we had to call a cab and dine in Bromsgrove!
We haven't managed to return to that stretch of the Worcester & Birmingham Canal since 2013, but I took the opportunity earlier this year to pop along and take a couple of photos to update the situation.
This was on the afternoon of Tuesday April 30th 2019. I must assume that most of the refurbishment was on the inside as the exterior looks to be largely unaltered. (I didn't go inside, but I'm guessing that it is still a gastropub!)
It is now run by the Lovely Pubs group which also operates The Boot in Lapworth (#004) and a few other gastropubs around South Warwickshire.
That 1997 picture is an absolute cracker �� I've actually been to the Boat and Railway which I presume is nearby ? Do like these canal pubs Pete...keep them coming! Boot is gastro pub of highest order so I suspect this will be the samee
ReplyDeleteThe morning is the best time for the light to get that shot of the Queen's Head.
DeleteThe Boat & Railway is six locks further down and I covered it here - https://pubsthenandnow.blogspot.com/2013/12/133-boat-and-railway-stoke-prior.html - some time ago, but we haven't been back that way since.
There used to be another little boozer in the village called The Butcher's Arms, it is now residential but remembered as Butcher's Row (opposite Sagebury Drive on Shaw Lane).
Plus, there's still the Bowling Green just outside the village...another Marston's pub.
If the pubco is called "Lovely Pubs" you sort of know they won't be ;-)
ReplyDeleteVery true!!
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