The circumstances were annoying, but also rather apt: my planned trip to the ruins of Staffordshire’s famous Crooked House pub had gone seriously wonky. It was Monday lunchtime and I was in Dublin Airport aiming to return to England, after a weekend spent in Kerry trying and failing to conquer a notorious mountain ridge route in atrocious winds. Unfortunately, things got no better from there.
The plan was to be in the Black Country of Staffordshire, an hour west of Birmingham, by late afternoon to meet locals campaigning to have the Crooked House rebuilt. The old pub, famous locally and nationally for leaning at an impossible angle, was destroyed by fire in a suspected arson attack this month. Its new owners then flattened the smoking ruins, sparking a national outcry.
But just before we were to board on Monday, the UK’s air traffic control system crashed. Every flight to Britain was cancelled. Cue lashings of woe. Soon I learned it would be Wednesday at the earliest before another flight was open. Getting my story straight on the Crooked House would be harder than anticipated.
The internet gave a shot at redemption. The tale of the Crooked House has exploded online.
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The story is a curious mix of two contrasting cultures. Firstly, it reflects Britain’s ingrained pub culture, which reaches deep into the most nostalgic corners of the nation’s soul. Secondly, the vigorous campaign to have the pub rebuilt is a window into modern social media culture, which often refracts the stirred-up emotions of people in the real world.
The Black Country is in England’s old industrial heartlands. They are sturdy folks up there. The Crooked House, an old farmhouse from the late 18th century, listed so fantastically due to subsidence from local mining. It was buttressed to stay standing and became much loved in all its wonky glory by the people of Staffordshire and beyond. They came from miles around to watch marbles rolling uphill on the bar counter, an optical illusion due to the building’s jaunty angle.
The brewery that owned the pub sold it in late July. On August 5th it burned down in what police believe was an arson attack. Firefighters who arrived found their access was limited by mounds of earth on approach roads. Two days later, diggers knocked the remains, infuriating locals in nearby Himley and Dudley, and grabbing political attention.
In the online world, nerves are fraying among some in the viral Facebook campaign to have the pub rebuilt
Outsiders may notice that many Britons these days are fitful over the erosion of their traditions. Rightly or wrongly, it is a theme running through many debates. The British outcry over the Crooked House flowed into this milieu of misgivings.
Local Staffordshire man Paul Turner set up a petition to save the pub as soon as he heard that it had been sold “to a private buyer for alternative use”. Speaking over the phone, the 58-year-old told me he first visited the pub when he was six: “You’d think it was going to fall over. Your first reaction was to laugh at it. It was this weird and funny place.”
He thought he’d get 1,000 signatures on the petition “if we were lucky”. Then he was invited to join a Facebook group calling for the Crooked House to be saved. “Within an hour, I heard the pub was on fire,” said Turner.
People were appalled. The story took off nationally. Then the diggers moved in, seemingly ending any prospect of a simple rebuild, and local feelings began running high.
“The pub symbolises the Black Country, its industry and its people. It’s a bit like a football club in that it doesn’t matter who owns it, it feels like it belongs to the local area,” said Turner.
People organised online and, to protect the ruins, began camping outside. Several remain there still. The Crooked House was reputedly haunted by a barmaid named Polly, so the Black Country Paranormal local interest group joined the vigil. Quirky placards emerged, with slogans such as “This is not what I meant when I said ‘down it’.”
Another, echoing local dialect, said: “Mama, we’re all crooked now.”
Local authorities liaised with the contractors, who linked in with Turner and other campaigners. They promised to preserve the bricks until the council decides what should happen on-site where, by all accounts, spirits are high at the vigil.
Meanwhile, in the online world, nerves are fraying among some in the viral Facebook campaign to have the pub rebuilt. A few have suggested that, unless the new owners co-operate or the council has the legal power, it might not be feasible to have the pub resurrected as it was before. These people have been criticised by some of the others, who will settle for nothing less than a complete rebuild on the same site.
Turner, an irrepressibly sensible sort of man, has acknowledged some of the fraying tempers online. But he says the campaign remains focused on having the pub rebuilt. It isn’t yet clear how that might be achieved, but locals in the Black Country won’t give up too easily. The friends of the Crooked House seem to be digging in for the long haul.