New Inn was as old as the hills
WITH this story I’m once again heading down memory lane, to one of the most wellknown streets in Dudley – Flood Street.
And right in my path at the junction of Flood Street and The Minories was a public house called The New Inn, which is the target of my interest.
It had stood solidly on that patch of ground in one form or another since the last year of King George III’S reign, 1819, with the first licensee listed as Ann Colley. I must confess I know little about its intervening years, until about 1933, when the pub was owned by Hanson’s Ales and Spirits Company, and as you can guess, it must have had many licensees over the passing years, with the last one being Charles Smith, from 1936 to 1954. At that point the pub as listed as number 13, Flood Street. It was demolished in around 1956.
Before I leave the subject,
I’d like to bring your attention back to the pub photo ... look over the road and you will see a double-fronted general store with a picket fence, which was listed as number 77 Flood Street. The keeper of that shop from 1936 to 1954 was Mr Ernest Morris.
Grand
The second photo takes us back in time to how the same shop looked in the early 1930s, much grander times, when it was owned by Richard and Nellie Barrington, who were the third generation of their family to own it. My mind boggles to think that this building, like the New Inn pub, might date back to 1819. I suppose it could be possible – can anyone prove me wrong?
The four ladies dressed smartly in the shop doorway are, from left to right at the front: young Hilda Barrington and her mother Nellie. The two ladies in the background were customers.
The shop closed down in 1954.