the coachmaker’s arms
Horrendous news. My local watering hole, The Coachmaker’s Arms, is being targeted for demolition.
Stoke-on-Trent has been slowly undergoing renovation through the council’s regeneration plans. Most of this work is much needed in the city, one of the poorest and most down at heel in the country. However, The Coachmaker’s Arms is an institution (no, I don’t mean lunatic asylum … although …), providing much warmth and hearty chat to all who stumble in through her doors.
Some time ago I was involved in a movement to prevent job losses at our local hospital, and the good people at The Coachmaker’s stood behind us, giving us use of one of their rooms for our meetings, putting posters up around the pub, and gathering signatures on our petition. It’s only right that now we show the same support and help save this brilliant place. Where else do you have to go outside to go back in to get to the gents’? Where else hosts a monthly jazz night in a room so small that to sit down you have to hold the musicians’ coats? Where else does it feel like you’re in someone’s front room, crowded around the blazing fire while a blizzard rages outside, everyone facing each other setting the world to rights?
Take a look at their website, I recommend the section on their new botanical gardens, in the news and events section, and sign the petition to show your support. Stoke-on-Trent can’t afford to lose another vital piece of it’s history.
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18 Mar, 2008 at 8:35 pm
What a shame. Everyone needs an alehouse.
19 Mar, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Apparently it’s to make way for the new bus station. I’ll be honest, the monstrosity that passes as a station now needed knocking down and replacing about 20 years ago, and something always has to make way for the new. It’s just a shame it’s this pub. Hanley, the city centre, is brimming to the top with identi-kit bars and clubs, as one by one the traditional pubs get taken over and remodelled. The Coachmaker’s has won awards from CAMRA, and really is the last of its kind around here. Even if they got help to re-establish elsewhere the character of the pub would never be replicated.
30 Mar, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Wow, I saw the banner on the front of the Coachmakers and thought nothing of it. I never knew about plans for a new bus station. Sure, the current station is a bit drab but I don’t think there’s a need to build a whole new station.
I guess I’ll have to head down to the Coachmakers before it (hopefully doesn’t) gets shut down. I hope I get a warm welcome unlike most of the other pubs I’ve been to in the past..being a 23 year old that looks like a 10 year old.
04 Nov, 2008 at 3:59 pm
[...] for 04/11/2008 The Coachmaker’s Arms (Catherine Buca): Some time ago I was involved in a movement to prevent job losses at our local hospital, and the [...]