With a 15° list making one end 1.2m lower than the other, the historic Crooked House pub looked as if could topple over at any minute.
However, despite its precarious appearance, the quirky 18th century hostelry stood at the heart of its community in the small central English village of Himley for 260 years.
That is until late last month, when the historic watering hole was sold and promptly burned down just over a week later.
Photo: AP
To the horror of locals, bulldozers then moved in and reduced the burned-out pub to rubble.
Police are investigating the blaze as arson, while planning authorities insist they only gave permission for the building to be made safe, not razed entirely.
The case has not only caused outrage among locals, but highlighted the threat facing the nation’s pubs, which have been battered by successive crises.
Photo: AFP
About 30 British pubs close their doors each month, according to the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA), a lobby group which promotes traditional drinks and pubs.
Paul Ainsworth, chairman of CAMRA’s pub heritage group, said that the loss of the “unique” and “amazing” Crooked House was an “absolute tragedy.”
Even if calls for it to be rebuilt were successful it would “never be the same because its unique atmosphere stemmed from its age and its history,” he added.
Campaigners say the loss of such pubs rips the heart from local communities.
Once sold, new owners under a law introduced in 2017 need planning permission to repurpose the sites.
However, CAMRA said that 31 pubs were knocked down or converted without approval between January and June.
In a letter to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the Campaign for Pubs last week denounced what it called “predatory purchasing and asset stripping of historic pubs” and called for action from central government to enforce the law.
Pubs — a central part of British life for centuries — have been struggling for many years as people’s drinking habits have changed.
Most recently, COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns and massive increases in energy prices this winter driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have taken a devastating toll.
Some pubs’ bill rose more than 300 percent, as part of a wider cost-of-living crisis, six of the country’s biggest pub and brewing firms said.
Ainsworth said that many pubs were just poorly run, resulting in a downward spiral.
Others, were deliberately allowed to fail as part of a strategy by owners to get the pub converted into a residential property in a prime spot, he said.
After the sale of the Crooked House — famed for its bar on which marbles or coins would appear to roll uphill — thousands of people signed an online petition calling for it to be saved.
Paul Turner, who started the petition, said that properly marketed, the pub could “attract visitors from all over the world.”
Turner, 58, said he was “absolutely devastated” by the subsequent blaze, adding that the place had been “part of my childhood.”
In the past few days, locals have turned out in droves to mourn their pub’s destruction.
Some have placed flowers and placards in the rubble with slogans such as “More than a pub” and “Straight answers for our crooked house.”
Ainsworth said that the best hope for the Himley community was that authorities ordered the rebuilding of the pub, paving the way for some sort of community takeover.
Since 2017 there has been a growing trend for communities to club together and take ownership of their pubs.
Although they represent just a fraction of the 47,000 pubs nationwide, he said the 205 in the hands of their communities represented real hope for people faced with the loss of their local.
One of the most recent is Scotland’s Old Forge, which has just reopened after being bought by a remote Highland community in March last year.
Locals raised ￡1 million (US$1.27 million) to buy it from its Belgian owner.
Ainsworth said the trend was “creating pubs which are by and large community focused, lovely places to be, serving the interests of the local community.”
“Places that had become sad places are now extremely happy places,” he said.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
RSS