What happened
Behind mock-Tudor additions of the 1930s on Bromford Lane in Erdington stands a real medieval timber frame. Tree-ring dating put its timbers at the end of the fourteenth century, felled in spring, which makes the house older than the standing fabric of the Old Crown in Deritend and gives Birmingham two candidates for its oldest building rather than one. It was not built as a pub. It went up as a high-status house and only began selling drink around the 1780s, under the name the Green Man; the 1306 sometimes painted on its sign belongs to no record anyone has produced. The pub stopped trading on 1 September 2019 and CAMRA has carried it as closed long term ever since, its future uncertain. On the evening of 7 November 2024 the fire service sent five engines and about thirty firefighters to two fires on the first floor that it believed had been set deliberately. Nobody was hurt. The frame survived that too, and is still standing, still listed, and still empty.
What is there now
Standing empty and deteriorating on Bromford Lane, fire-damaged and Grade II listed since 1952. Nothing has been announced about repair, sale or reopening since the 2024 fire, and the listing is now the main thing protecting a building that has outlasted six centuries of Birmingham.
Location recorded from Wikipedia.
Sources
- Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
- CAMRAcamra.org.uk
- birminghamworld.uk
- planning.data.gov.uk
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