Inns 4: Closed Inns

Reflecting the troubles of this age, I came across a number of pubs and inns which were evidently no longer open for business. One or two I was told had recently closed, and a number were in reasonably good condition, with current 'To Let' signs, suggesting that they could yet see some life.

Sadder were the hostelries, still identified by their signs, fallen into dilapidation, where reopening does not seem in prospect at all:

The Bald-Faced Stag in Burnt Oak (the area earlier known as Red Hill), an inn of this name, if not this building, traceable here since the early 19th century at least.

The Hollybush, Elstree, a former pub which in part dates back to the 15th century, now looked after by 'Space Sitters'.

The Rising Sun in Brownhills at least still gives its name to a roundabout. It has the distinction of Britain's oldest finger post (or actually, a replica, because the original is in a museum) standing outside.




Two very grand old inns along the road were the former White Horse in Hockcliffe and the former Four Crosses.

The old White Horse is an attractive and imposing roadside building. No sign now, but very clearly once a grand inn. It's been many things and is now a private home, and was for sale when I walked past. This is a place with real potential.

The Four Crosses, west of Cannock, just looks so 'Olde Worlde', with its 1636 date, its Latin inscription  and having had the benefit of an early 20th century restoration. Somebody must love this building enough to keep it this way.







Then there were the old inn buildings now repurposed as something different, keeping them in use, still looking a bit like an inn: The Halian Vet Centre in what was once the Red Cow, the Shifnal Cottage Indian restaurant in the former Hare & Hounds being just two examples.

I also enjoyed looking for buildings which were once inns but hardly showed it. Smockington was once a major crossroads, and very close to the site of a Roman Villa. In Ogilby's Britannia, the Hereford to Leicester road crosses Watling Street here, at a staggered junction, where Celia Fiennes, a noted 17th century traveller referred to "a little place called Smockington, fitted for inns, very commodious". Those inns were the Greyhound at Smockington Hollow where the Leicester road joins, then the Red Lion, where the road leaves towards Hereford. Harper in 1902 referred to "a hamlet in a bottom, with some reminiscences of a coaching age". That staggered junction became the junction of the A5 and A46 - but today, the long-distance traffic takes the M69, and what was once the A46 is now a minor road, B4114. Smockington is no longer a crossing-point justifying inns. The Red Lion is now just Red Lion Farm. A much modernised house at Smockington Hollow looks unconnected - but the Georgian doorway gives away its past: this must be the Greyhound.