Tag: swan and mitre

#365daysofbiking Really Greet

Wednesday, October 7th 2020 – I was once again visiting a client near Tyseley, and the meeting was done and dusted quickly. I’d got there by hopping onto a train to Aston, and dropping on the canal. On my return, I visited one shops in the Balti Triangle for snacks, treats and ingredients, then rode back on the canal home.

Birmingham’s inner city captivated me as it always does – but the plight of it’s Victorian pubs is concerning me, with the Swan and Mitre in Aston up for auction again, and the Marlborough in Greet still decaying, slowly.

Few things comment more eloquently on urban decay than stopped public clocks.

It was, of course, the canal and its culture that was the star. Nice to see Anatomix’s Tangram Fox is still proud on the side of the Bond, and Bill Drummond has been at it again under Spaghetti junction. But the colour was not limited to the graffiti: Autumn is really setting in now.

A lovely ride on a nice day – but quite chilly.

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May 12th – The rest of the day was marked with damp natural beauty and curiosity; the wild-growing roses were out in St. Matthews churchyard in Walsall, and they fit this decaying corner of God’s Acre beautifully, while not far away, also decaying, the oddity that is Highgate Windmill was standing sentry over the quiet, respectful urbanity as it has done for centuries.

I noted all along the journey that marble oak galls are surprisingly prolific this season, and last year must have been very good for the parent wasps who create them. They hang like red fruits in the oak trees.

Sad to see the Swan and Mitre in Aston still empty: A remarkable terracotta late Victorian pub, hideously beautiful in mock gothic in that way only Victorian boozers can be, this spectacular building holds many memories for me. Many a time I leant on that railing one a summer evening with a pint in my hand watching the comings and goings to late-shift local factories.

Reflecting, I have little physically to show for the few short years I spent haunting this place, but I do have a lifelong friendship and some truly wonderful memories.

The past is best thought of in terms of what was found, not that which was lost.

September 9th – In Aston, a sad sight; a pub that I once frequented regularly has closed. Beautiful in that hideously overblown way only Birmingham terracotta pubs can be, the Swan and Mitre on the corner of Holborn Hill was never salubrious, but it was a good boozer that contains many happy memories.

It’s a genuinely astounding building, but sadly the reputation this place carried and decline of nearby industry signed it’s death warrant many years ago. 

Like the Brittania, nearby (now converted into a cafe) there seems little place in modern suburban Birmingham for the huge alehouses of yore, which is a great pity.

Never again will I lean on the railings outside on a warm evening, pint in hand, watching the world go by. But then, those days passed a long, long time ago, and the faces that filled those memories have moved on, slipped away or faded out of mind. 

Except one.

I just hope the building can be repurposed.