The Crooked House: Britain's 'wonkiest pub' to be sold

[Scott]

 

A pub thought to be Britain's wonkiest has been put up for sale by its owners.

The Crooked House on Himley Road, near Dudley is one of 61 freehold pubs being sold by Marston's PLC.

It comes as part of a nationwide review by the Wolverhampton-based company, which owns about 1,500 pubs across the UK.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-64912966

[Chomper Higgot]

I visited once on a cycle touring holiday. The repetitive joke was you’ve had enough when the pub starts to look straight.

 

One of the biggest changes returning expats who have been away for many years will see is the disappearance of pubs, particularly in villages.

 

During my February visit I got the sense cafes are taking over some of socializing that was the reserve of pubs.

 

A sad loss I think.

 

 

[Foxx]

In other pub-related news, developers who illegally pulled down an historic pub have been ordered to rebuild it completely using materials from the rubble.  It'll reportedly cost them £1.5 million to do so.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/10/developers-who-destroyed-historic-lancashire-pub-punch-bowl-inn-hurst-green-ordered-to-rebuild-it

[mrfill]

8 hours ago, Chomper Higgot said:

I visited once on a cycle touring holiday. The repetitive joke was you’ve had enough when the pub starts to look straight.

 

One of the biggest changes returning expats who have been away for many years will see is the disappearance of pubs, particularly in villages.

 

During my February visit I got the sense cafes are taking over some of socializing that was the reserve of pubs.

 

A sad loss I think.

 

 

Sad but not surprising.

For 10 years from 2007, I had a company that supplied caretakers for closed pubs and dealt with nearly 1000 pubs. Reasons for closure were not that many and tended to fall into three groups

1 - The property company that owned the place increased the rent hugely (+100% not unusual) driving out long established landlords.

2 - Feckless landlords who thought they could make a fast buck. These tended to wreck the place and move on leaving power bills unpaid, business tax unpaid and then disappearing. The high rent and hard work required was beyond them

3 - Places where the locals though it was dreadful that they were losing their pub but when asked if they were regulars always answered 'no, never go in there'.

There were other factors such as the smoking ban (started 2007), cheap supermarket booze and the advent of cheap big screens (which made visiting the pub to watch a game unnecessary. You could sit at home with mates, drink cheap supermarket beer AND smoke).

In about 75% of cases, the pub closing was no real loss to the community and nothing needed to replace it as it wasn't used anyway...