Beer with Slant: Crooked House Pub

Our story begins at the end of the 18th century in the small village of Himley, not far from Stirling, in the middle of England. Staffordshire County had been based here for centuries. Decades earlier, the family's medieval home had given way to a newly built country estate that is still a sight to behold today: Himley Hall.

Himley Hall is still an impressive building with beautiful grounds, and it's well worth a visit. But today, we're not talking about this grand building, but about a much smaller one in the shadow of the stately walls: a simple flour mill built nearby in 1765, which was destined to become the craziest pub in England.

Impressive Estate of Himley Hall in Central England

Story of Crooked House Pub

As times changed, people's needs changed with them. Around 1830, the small flour mill in Glynne became a pub: the Glynne Arms. Why did entertainment and alcohol suddenly become more important than supplying the population with fresh flour? It's actually quite simple: one of the most sought-after raw materials of the time was discovered right next door.

Mill Becoming Pub

The region to the west of Birmingham, where the village of Himley is located, soon became known as the Black Country, which was a major coal mining hub. As the Industrial Revolution was just reaching its peak in England, coal was extracted from mineshafts wherever there were large deposits.

The area around the pub, Himley Colliery, was one of the most important coal mining areas and was owned by the Earl of Dudley. So the coal brought workers to the small village. And what did workers need after their work in the mineshafts was done? Bread? That's right—alcohol and good entertainment! So it was only natural that the small mill was changed into a pub.

Crooked House: Pub on Slant

However, coal mining soon revealed its darker side. Even darker than the coal itself. After a few years of intense mining, the first landslides occurred. We're familiar with this phenomenon from the major disaster in Nachterstedt, Germany in 2009. Mine shafts had become unstable, and the ground collapsed, sweeping half the town into the abyss. It was like something out of a disaster movie.

Coal mining can often cause problems near where people live.

In Himley, the impact of coal mining in the 1850s wasn't as severe as in other areas, but it was still a concern. The Glynne Arms gradually sank deeper into the ground on one side. This subsidence is often linked to coal mining in the area close to the pub. However, it's also possible that the ground was gradually softened by the millrace that ran alongside the former mill.

Whatever the cause, the pub ended up leaning by about four feet. One side of the Crooked House was about 1.2m lower than the other, at an angle of 15 degrees. So it was clearly leaning, but it was still standing. Many engineers today smile at the construction methods of the past. In the dialect of the Black Country, the pub was nicknamed "Siden House". Over time, this developed more and more into its later name "Crooked House".

To ensure that the Crooked House remained stable and did not sink further and further to one side like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the building was reinforced with buttresses until 1904. But in the 1940s, this wasn't enough. The pub was popular because of its bozzare sloped position, but it was becoming unsafe. As a result, the Crooked House Pub was already on the brink of demolition. However, this fate was averted. After all, such special buildings had to be preserved – for the charm of the region and, of course, the income generated by the pub's fame.

Crooked House Pub: Beer and Misfortunes

Wolverhampton and Dudley Breweries, which was made up of three big breweries, bought the pub and had the supporting structure reinforced even more. From 1957, the Crooked House pub had a steel anchor and further reinforcement of the buttresses. The cost was £10,000, which would be around £300,000 today – a lot of money.

The bar of a typical English pub attracts new guests every evening.

For years there were no problems and the popularity of the Crooked House Pub was not affected. In 1986, however, the building suffered another disaster. A fire damaged the first floor and the roof, and it was unclear if the pub would survive.

However, the brewery was attached to the small pub and decided to invest again. This time, the company spent £360,000 on the necessary renovation work. That's around £1,000,000 today, which is a lot of money to save an old pub. The Crooked House Pub was soon ready to reopen.

What's Special About Crooked House Pub

Maybe you've been wondering all along, "Well, the building is crooked—so what?" Then why was it so popular for so long? What makes it so special? The reason is that everything inside the Crooked House Pub had been set up straight. The leaning of the building was used as an optical illusion to create a small attraction.

The crooked walls created impressive optical illusions, similar to those that can be seen in some of the odd "Crazy Houses". Our eyes are just too used to seeing things in a straight line, and it really tests our minds.

Is that a marble rolling up the wall ledges of the pub? And there—a bottle rolling up the table! All the furniture and furnishings were visibly inclined. Or were they? Even the chandelier was leaning. It was enough to confuse even the most seasoned traveler.

This unique feature of the formerly small village of Himley became a national highlight over the decades, drawing in a large number of guests from near and far to the Crooked House Pub. People came to the pub—whether drunk or not—and most ended up swaying on their own.

Crooked Houses in Easter England: Half-imbered Architecture in Lavenham

End of Crooked House Pub

The Crooked House pub had survived a landslide and over 200 years of turbulent history—in a crooked position, but it was still standing. Nevertheless, the weirdest pub in England does no longer exist. What happened? The beginning of the end was a sale of the quirky building.

Sale of Crooked House Pub

In 2023, the Crooked House Pub was put up for sale. But not because it was struggling, on the contrary. It was offered as a going concern, which in economic terms meant that the business was unlikely to go bust in the near future. So with the pub in the black, things were going well, they were just looking for a new owner who would continue to run it.

From that point on, things got pretty murky. Before any offers were even received, became a crime scene on June 25. Because it was broken into. The thieves caused over £10,000 worth of damage to the bar, kitchen, and toilet area. A month later, an application was made to list the quirkiest pub in England as a listed building in order to secure the future of the Crooked House.

Before the application could be completed, the pub was sold. The price is unknown, and so is the future use. There were only reports of an alternative use for the site. The new owners seemed to rule out reopening it as a pub, but why, we can only speculate about.

Many visitors were drawn to the Crooked House Pub by its visual charm.

The buyer was a real estate company registered at the same address as the neighboring quarry next to the pub. A company for the rental of equipment and construction machinery was also registered at the same address. Sounds like a conspiracy? Many English people think so! Because that was far from the end of the story.

Fire in Crooked House Pub

Just nine days after the sale of the former pub, there was a shocking piece of news in the media: the Crooked House Pub was completely gutted by fire on the evening of August 5, 2023. Parts of the supporting structure and the roof were destroyed, because the fire could not be extinguished in time to save the building.

The reason was not that the fire department was too slow. On the contrary. Several crews from the Staffordshire and West Midlands fire departments set off immediately after the emergency call. But they were denied access to the site. The only access road to the Crooked House pub was blocked by a 2.5m high mound of earth which, according to local residents, had definitely not been there before. A strange coincidence.

The blockage forced the fire department to lay out about 1,000 m of hose to get to the building, which took a while. While they were doing that, the fire continued to eat its way through the weirdest pub in the country, destroying memories of over 200 years of history.

Fire often ends fatally for most buildings.

In the end, to protect the remaining load-bearing structure, it was decided to demolish parts of the Crooked House. This included areas of the second floor and the front facade. After consulting with experienced experts, council representatives decided that a complete demolition of the Crooked House Pub wasn't necessary.

Illegal Demolition of Crooked House Pub

On August 7, a police cordon was placed. However, the officers were pulled back quickly, because the building was unsafe. Supervision was therefore handed over to the landowner. Things didn't stay quiet for long, though, because a few hours later, a hired digger arrived and demolished the entire pub, down to the foundations.

Before this, most of the interior furnishings that had been spared by the fire, like the old grandfather clock, were probably removed from the building. It later turned out that the hired digger came directly from the same company that was registered at the same address as the landowner. We remember, it was the real estate company in the same building as the neighboring quarry. Coincidence? Unlikely.

The rental company said they didn't know what the customer was planning to use the excavator for. They did confirm that it was one of their regular customers who had requested the machine. As it turned out, there had already been a major, unexplained fire at a landfill site owned by the same rental company in 2018. Could there be a connection? We'll let you decide.

Demolition of individual buildings using an excavator is a common procedure.

Council leaders and the Mayor of the West Midlands were upset and angry, as were the majority of fans who had gathered around the Crooked House pub all this time. An investigation was immediately launched to determine if the demolition was justified.

Crooked House Pub Burned Down – Who to Blame?

On August 9, Staffordshire Police announced that the investigation into the fire was ongoing, but that it was believed to be arson. Six people were later arrested as suspects, but released on bail. A final court hearing is still pending.

While the investigation into the case was still ongoing, social media struck. The Crooked House Pub was not only well known locally, and the fire and subsequent demolition had made international headlines. In the weeks and months that followed, numerous bricks were removed from the site and sold on social media.

To put a stop to this, an initiative was formed to recover as many of the stolen bricks as possible and to campaign for the rebuilding of the Crooked House Pub. The group also set out to find the historic grandfather clock, which had not appeared in the rubble or in any reports of the demolition.

Many buildings fall victim to arson every year.

What will happen to the Crooked House pub?

In February 2024, there was an initial court decision regarding the Crooked House Pub. South Staffordshire Council decided to serve an enforcement notice on the landowner. This included measures to rebuild the pub brick by brick, using the old bricks on site. The court gave the owners three years to rebuild the Crooked House pub true to the original.

However, the owners appealed the decision. This was followed by a proposal to move the pub to another location that was deemed more suitable. This was rejected by the supporters of the historic building. They saw no obvious need for it.

What was so interesting or important about the site of the neighboring quarry that a real estate company with the same address seemed to try everything to make the pub disappear from there forever? Maybe one day we'll find out. However, the rumor mill is churning and the final proceedings are still pending. What do you think? Are there unusual coincidences at play here, or do you smell a conspiracy?

Crooked House Pub National Attraction

Summary: Crooked House Pub

Whatever the future holds for the Crooked House Pub, we sincerely hope it is a positive one. Losing such a special building would be a terrible loss for the entire building industry. After all, the pub was a well-known crowd puller for the area.

When do you get the chance to see a real "crazy house"? A building with such a long history that has withstood many blows of fate. It would be a real shame if the Crooked House pub were to become a fading memory in England's architectural history.