The
Flouch Inn for many years was a well-known landmark on the main road from Manchester to Sheffield across the Woodhead Pass. About twenty-five years ago it was partially bypassed when the route of the A628 was aligned to a new roundabout a little further south,
to which it still gives its name. I think it’s been closed for a few years now, in its final incarnation having been partially used as a Balti restaurant. Now it’s reported that
the pub is to be demolished and the site redeveloped for housing.
The photo shows a handsome 1930s stone building, although rather marred by the later conservatory-type extension at the front. I may be wrong, but I don’t remember that being there in 1985 when, ironically, we tried to go in for some food on a Sunday and found it too full. That’s the nearest I ever came to actually going in it. Like many pubs in and around Sheffield, it was tied to Bass in those days.
Think that any pub business went to the very foody but excellent Dog & Partridge just round the corner on the A628; not much local trade !
ReplyDeletePenistone itself seemed to still be supporting quite a few wet-led locals, but that may be tempting fate.
Lovely part of the country.
I do apologise for writing this but every time you post a picture of a boarded-up shit-hole in some godforsaken place that's usually on an A-road between Lancashire and Yorkshire it just adds to the feeling that its grim 'oop North.
ReplyDeleteCan you not lift the overall gloom with a picture of somewhere nice that's just opened up.
Well, in a sense much of the point of this blog is to lament the passing of what some might regard as "boarded-up shitholes".
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of other cheery-beery blogs that will point you in the direction of "somewhere nice that's just opened up", although to me that's likely to be just another urban beer bubble bar.
I do say some nice things about a few pubs on Campaign for Real Pubs.
And the last boarded-up shithole I posted a picture of was in a built-up location in South Manchester.
As it says in the blurb, if you don't like it, you don't have to read it.
Some nice new houses will be less of an eyesore than that grotty drive.
ReplyDeleteI have sympathy with Prof Pie-Tin's views and your own. Some pubs which have closed were shit-holes but if said shit-hole was your local, you're going to miss it. However, I have noticed that most of the closed pubs you highlight are in the North and Midlands. I live Down South and I don't see pubs closing to anything like the same extent. Of course there have been a few around here (Bristol) but most were as rough as guts and had been abandoned by their respectable regulars in favour of better places nearby, leaving just the druggies and other assorted dross. The pubs I use (some city centre, some suburban) are thriving. Are we looking at a major North-South divide here or is Bristol just comparatively lucky?
ReplyDeleteObviously I live in the North-West and will tend to highlight things that are familiar to me. I have only featured closed pubs on this blog when they are either well-known landmarks (like the Flouch) or ones with which I have a particular connection.
ReplyDeleteThe Closed Pubs blog is entirely dependent on either me being personally familiar with the pubs concerned, or being sent details by a correspondent. Thus it also has a North-West bias, and I have recently been sent a large batch of photos from someone living in Burton-upon-Trent.
But I have featured pubs in the South of England on there - for example this one in Exeter - and I have no reason to believe that the pattern of pub closures is actually much different in the South than in the North. There are quite a few on there in London, and recently I've featured one near High Wycombe.
And also people - remember the title of this blog!!
ReplyDelete