Sunny Selly Oak under Shutdown

Since the 'lockdown' started, I've grasped the opportunity to take pictures during my permitted daily exercise. 

Selly Oak is probably my next nearest suburb with pubs (Bournville is nearer, but publess!). I've also recently updated the previous Selly Oak pub entries on this blog.

So here we go with a wider view of Studentville Selly Oak.

Bristol Road, Selly Oak - April 2020

This is the classic picture postcard view of Selly Oak from the middle of the Bristol Road outside Selly Oak Station. It was about 2pm and you can see how little traffic there was, enabling me to get exactly the view I wanted (without much chance of getting run over!). Sadly, in reality, the bridge is sporting lots of grafitti that I've 'painted over' to give the view as it should be.

As I'm not a regular visitor, pretty much all of what I know about Selly Oak is the pubs, three of which I've reported on earlier.

Bristol Pear, Selly Oak - April 2020

This is the view from under Selly Oak Railway Bridge and shows the last pub I had a pint in before the lockdown. The Bristol Pear is a pub we pop into on the odd occasions when we're having a few drinks in Selly Oak, but it was on our last visit when I noticed this, directly opposite the pub, for the very first time!

Selly Oak Library - April 2020

Selly Oak Library (currently closed) is a replica of Stirchley Library (operational before the lockdown) and was built in 1909 (four years after Stirchley's). It is a Carnegie Library, has it's own Wikipedia entry and is Grade II listed.

Moving further down the Bristol Road towards town, we come across a 'new' pub that we had the chance on our most recent visit of going into for a pint, but we decided against!

The S'oak, Bristol Road - April 2020

Back in the late 70's when I was a student this was a row of shops, one of which was a very good secondhand bookshop. When The S'oak first opened (and I don't remember exactly when that was!) it only really occupied the corner part of the building, but has expanded over the years to occupy the whole ground floor.

As I was searching for details about the history of the pub, I came across this review on Pubs Galore by the late, pubman extraordinaire, Alan Winfield: -

"The S'oak looks like a modern pub that is housed in an old building,this was one of my Sons locals when he was at Birmingham University a few years back.
Once inside there is a very large single room with the bar in the middle area,the floor is bare boarded,the seating is tall tables and chairs and normal tables and chairs,there is a pool table to the rear right,the TVs were showing the FA Cup Final.
There were two real ales on the bar,i had a drink of Daleside G&P which went down well,the other real ale was GK Radio X Amplified.
I thought this was a decent enough pub to have a drink in."

Next door is the third of the 'student' pubs on the main drag of the Bristol Road.

Goose at the OVT, Selly Oak - April 2020

In the years that I've known this pub it has had four names (Bournbrook Hotel, Farce & Firkin, Old Varsity Tavern, Goose at the OVT) and been transformed, from a quite rambling multiroom pub, into something of a 'beer barn', originally, as M&B's answer to Wetherspoon's.

There is just one more pub on the Bristol Road and it is in the other direction. The Bear & Staff has an interesting back story!

Bear & Staff, Selly Oak - April 2020

Back in the day, near the junction of Bristol Road and Oak Tree Lane stood The Oak pub which was demolished in 1983 to make way for road widening. It was replaced by the Great Oak in 1985. A shiny new pub which I visited on the opening night. Less than 10 years later it was demolished to make way for Sainsbury's to expand their carpark in 1994! (see details here on this and the rest of Selly Oak's lost pubs!)

This was when the Bear & Staff came into existence, about 100 yards from where the Great Oak stood. It wasn't a new build. Much to our frustration this was, apparently, one of the best Italian restaurants in Birmingham (according to a taxi driver we met who regularly ferried people from BBC Pebble Mill to the restaurant!). Right on our doorstep and we never knew!

It is now a fairly bog-standard Marston's pub which was recently refurbished.

Finally, we come to the one Selly Oak entry not on the Bristol Road...and no prizes for guessing which pub it is...I give you the Country Girl!

Country Girl, Raddlebarn Road - April 2020

I've written plenty about what is, essentially, my local. So, I'll leave you with an image of it on a bright, sunny, early Spring day during the lockdown of 2020.  

#005 Bristol Pear, Selly Oak : 1996 to 2020 (Revisited)

I don't visit the Bristol Pear frequently, but this hostelry has the dubious honour of being the last pub I drank in before the current lockdown!

I have made occasional visits over the past few years, but this is what I wrote in 2011: -

I first visited The Station in the late 70's when I was a student. My vague recollection is that it was a pub for locals and full of 'old' people (at a guess, about the age I am now!) so I wasn't a frequent visitor.

As I lived in the area, over the years I visited a few more times and it was completely refurbished some years later. During this period, The Station was a regular stop off for a pint whilst our Chinese takeaway was being prepared on a Saturday evening. During this phase of its existence it was reasonably welcoming and catered for all ages. 

The picture below is from 1996 when I was visiting close to the end of our canal trip to Llangollen and Chester on the evening of Thursday 5th September 1996.

Not many years after this the pub was completely revamped into an 'It's a Scream' pub and renamed the Bristol Pear. This was Mitchells & Butlers way of making student friendly pubs, which seemed to work. On the odd occasions we visited it was full and loud, but strangely the layout was the same as before! The picture below is from the evening of Thursday 3rd June 2004 at the end of a short trip exploring some of the hidden canals in Birmingham.

Finally we come to the afternoon of Thursday 21st July 2011. I'm still an infrequent visitor, but it survives by being apparently what the students want, so who am I to argue?


It's a funny thing; when I was young this pub was full of old people, but now I'm 'old' it's full of young people so it has never been one of my favourite pubs...oh for a time machine.


I'm not sure if The Station was one of The Pub Curmudgeon's haunts when he too was a student in Brum, but I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his help and encouragement with this blog and I'll finish with a story that will not help his blood pressure!

The last time I was in the Bristol Pear was on a Saturday evening and we were served our lager in plastic pints. We were told that this rule had come in after some trouble (unspecified at that time) and plastics must be used for beer after 7pm in all pubs in Selly Oak! The next pub we went to was The S'oak (a new establishment) where again we were served our pints in plastics. This time we found out the cause - in separate incidents someone had been glassed and someone had been badly cut after falling onto a broken glass. So maybe the precautions were warranted...except...the person had been glassed with a Coke glass and the person who'd fallen fell onto a wine glass. Neither of these types of glass had been banned!
I don't know if these restrictions are still in place as I've no real desire to go back and drink out of plastic!

I can confirm that the practice of drinking out of 'plastics' was a thankfully, short-lived phenomenon!

The next time I took photos was on the afternoon of Friday 6th June 2014.

As it happens, very little had changed in the passing three years.

Moving on to the time of Covid-19 and the first lockdown, I took these photos on my permitted exercise on the afternoon of Wednesday 8th April 2020.

 That is quite a refurbishment! The 'Scream!' pubs were bought by Stonegate (from Mitchells & Butlers) in 2010, but they ran them in a similar fashion for several years. The Bristol Pear is now part of the 'Common Room' brand within Stonegate (other brands include Slug & Lettuce, Walkabout, Yates to name a few). I do like the new look, but to my mind, you can't beat the classic décor from 1996 when it was still The Station!

#005 Bristol Pear, Selly Oak : 1996 to 2011

I first visited The Station in the late 70's when I was a student. My vague recollection is that it was a pub for locals and full of 'old' people (at a guess, about the age I am now!) so I wasn't a frequent visitor.

As I lived in the area, over the years I visited a few more times and it was completely refurbished some years later. During this period, The Station was a regular stop off for a pint whilst our Chinese takeaway was being prepared on a Saturday evening. During this phase of its existence it was reasonably welcoming and catered for all ages. 

The picture below is from 1996 when I was visiting close to the end of our canal trip to Llangollen and Chester on the evening of Thursday 5th September 1996.

Not many years after this the pub was completely revamped into an 'It's a Scream' pub and renamed the Bristol Pear. This was Mitchells & Butlers way of making student friendly pubs, which seemed to work. On the odd occasions we visited it was full and loud, but strangely the layout was the same as before! The picture below is from the evening of Thursday 3rd June 2004 at the end of a short trip exploring some of the hidden canals in Birmingham.

Finally we come to the afternoon of Thursday 21st July 2011. I'm still an infrequent visitor, but it survives by being apparently what the students want, so who am I to argue?


It's a funny thing; when I was young this pub was full of old people, but now I'm 'old' it's full of young people so it has never been one of my favourite pubs...oh for a time machine.


I'm not sure if The Station was one of The Pub Curmudgeon's haunts when he too was a student in Brum, but I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his help and encouragement with this blog and I'll finish with a story that will not help his blood pressure!

The last time I was in the Bristol Pear was on a Saturday evening and we were served our lager in plastic pints. We were told that this rule had come in after some trouble (unspecified at that time) and plastics must be used for beer after 7pm in all pubs in Selly Oak! The next pub we went to was The Soak (a new establishment) where again we were served our pints in plastics. This time we found out the cause - in separate incidents someone had been glassed and someone had been badly cut after falling onto a broken glass. So maybe the precautions were warranted...except...the person had been glassed with a Coke glass and the person who'd fallen fell onto a wine glass. Neither of these types of glass had been banned!
I don't know if these restrictions are still in place as I've no real desire to go back and drink out of plastic!