Last orders for historic pub?
Boss says Digbeth’sWhite Swan is on borrowed time as trade dwindles
ONE of Birmingham’s famous late-Victorian redbrick pubs is facing a bleak future, calims its landlord.
Nigel Barker, boss of the White Swan in Deritend, says if trade does not take off soon then he will be forced to close its doors just two weeks after being listed in the new Good Beer Guide.
The grade II-listed pub was closed for two years from July 2019 and vandalised during lockdown until Mr Barker read about its plight.
Feeling that he could not stand by and watch one of the city’s bestloved hostelries go to rack and ruin, He struck a deal with owners SevenCapital to try to bring it back to life.
The pub reopened on September 15, 2021 and trade was busy with a mixture of real ale fans, pub afficianados and potential regulars.
There were echoes of its heyday serving local industrial workers their liquid lunches, as an Irish Quarter favourite which revived the St Patrick’s Day Parade in 1886, and as a pre-match bar for Blues’ fans.
But now trade is suffering in the
It’s not just one thing, it’s all of these things put together Landlord Nigel Barker
age of rising interest rates, galloping inflation, rocketing fuel prices and major structural changes to the city’s transport network.
The pub, built in 1899-1900 by the famed James & Lister Lea, was sold three years ago by Marston’s brewery.
The nearby High Street Deritend has been a mass of roadworks for 18 months for the Eastside extension of the West Midlands Metro tram network.
Meanwhile, the Pershore Street and Markets (Moat Lane) multi-storey car parks have been demolished and, more than four years after the
closure of the nearby Birmingham Wholesale Market, the prospective £1.5 billion Smithfield development is now 42 acres of empty space.
Bradford Street has been given cycle lane facilities but that has narrowed the road for buses and other traffic, reducing local parking options and making it harder to find the time and space to have a look around whilst passing through.
Add in the government’s latest U-turn not to freeze the duty on beer prices – announced by Jeremy Hunt.
“It’s not just one thing, it’s all of these things put together,” said Mr Barker.
“This is a big building which needs staffing properly and with trade as it is that makes it increasingly difficult.
“We have two managers and four or five part-time staff and they were
all devastated when I told them last night.”
The pub was put back on the market by SevenCapital for £640,000 in April.
Mr Barker said he had been told there had been ‘a lot of interest’. But he added: “If that’s true, why hasn’t it been sold? When we took the pub on we didn’t rebuild the central heating which had been ripped out by vandals before. We’ve been relying on heating fans and, already, you can see what rising fuel bills mean.
“If trade doesn’t pick up, The White Swan is just not viable.”