Tuesday 14 February 2012

Grapes crushed

Here are a couple of pictures taken earlier this morning of the Grapes in Edgeley, Stockport, which served customers for the last time last Saturday night. It was then closed, and yesterday the external signage was removed and the rear windows covered with steel plates. Never again will drinkers thrill to the sounds of Lens Karaoke (sic). Note the gable-end signage on the StreetView image. I can’t see this one ever reopening as a pub. Along with the Bay Horse in Newton, Hyde and the New Inn in Castleton, Rochdale, it was one of three Robinson’s pubs closed on the same day.

In a landlocked situation on a pedestrianised shopping street, with no catering kitchen and no possibility of creating any kind of outdoor smoking area apart from the street, this one always looked to me as though it would ultimately become a victim of the smoking ban, and so it has proved, although maybe it lasted longer than I expected. For many years in the Eighties and Nineties it was a perennial fixture in the Good Beer Guide.

The Armoury on the other side of the roundabout, which has been extensively refurbished by Robinson’s since the StreetView image was taken, and has a spacious beer garden with covered smoking patios, looks likely to reap the benefit of what trade remained to the Grapes. A sad, but all too common, sign of the overall decline of the pub trade.

8 comments:

  1. Is it going to become something nicer than a pub? Like a Tesco Express?

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  2. Is the New Inn a permanent closure as far as you know? I have informed our Pubs Officer.

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  3. @Tandleman: The only information I have is the post by Eric Mills which you saw last night. As the signage has been removed, I would assume the Grapes is a permanent closure - I can't see micro-breweries and free house operators falling over themselves to buy it in that location.

    @Cookie - nah, Tesco Express is far too upmarket for Edgeley. No car park, either. Mind you, down the street the "Edgeley Discount Store" has just opened on the site of the old Windsor Castle, advertising "Stationary" and "Confectionary".

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  4. Its all because of cheap booze in Tesco's, isn't it?

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  5. Looking around the area with street view, maybe a 99p shop will open to drive down the rip off pound shops.

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  6. Mudgie. I checked the New Inn last night - well looked out the bus window as I passed. It is till open and trading, but I think there is a "For Sale" board up, but it was too dark to see what it said.

    PS. Your previous moderation was a PIA. This new one is hard to discern and a positive deterrent.

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  7. "Your previous moderation was a PIA. This new one is hard to discern and a positive deterrent."

    It's a change made by Blogger that I have no control over. I noticed it on another blog earlier today. Before I introduced word verification I was getting a ludicrous amount of spam, which it has effectively completely stopped.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Tandy, yesterday I experimentally turned word verification off. This morning I logged on to find a sackload of spam. So, sorry, it goes back on again.

    ReplyDelete

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