THE CROWN ELFORD

A Change of Venue

The Crown at Elford

Saturday night (22 August) saw the Crown PH in Elford close its doors for an extended period of refurbishment and, possibly, close forever a victim of the blight that currently afflicts traditional pubs.

The event hosted at the Crown on Saturday night was a leaving party for the landlord who had managed to bring the pub back from the dead and improve trade.

Inside the Crown

We arrived at the pub and the party was in full swing but when we spoke to Anthony, who was expected to take over the position of manager it was revealed that at short notice the company that owns the pub was closing it for a 'structural survey and remedial works' that would take at least the next three or four months and that they had also put the pub on the market so there was a danger that it wouldn't re-open.

This came as a bolt out of the blue both to him and us.

A  gathering of villagers

The gathering at The Crown was well attended by the villagers of Elford many expressing their concern that the heart of the village was being lost. We have never seen the place so busy but then we purposely hold our meetings on a Monday traditionally one of the quieter evenings for the pub trade. It is to be hoped that the village can rally round to do something to preserve their pub but the asking price is probably going to exclude any chance of buying it.

Somewhat surprised by this turn of events we turned our attention to finding another venue for our group meetings and, to give us a clearer steer on where to look, we plotted the home addresses of all the regular attendees onto a Google map. This allowed us to identify the ideal place for our meetings and it turned out to be - Elford!

Don't try this at home.

Looking at venues close by we remembered that the landlord of the Swan at Fradley had approached us at Cars in the Park to say that he was encouraging car clubs to gather at his venue and invited us to try them out.

As we were at the Lupin Farm car gathering on Sunday we took the opportunity to take a walk over to the pub and see if it had the right sort of space for our meetings.

Approaching the pub along the canal towpath it is clear that, when the weather is favourable, this is a very popular place for boaters, drinkers and gongoozlers. (If you aren't familiar with the term go HERE).

Whenever we have been to the pub in the past we have always turned right when going through the front door but on this occasion we thought we would have a better look around and turned left instead. The interior of the Swan is made up of a series of small rooms and in the bar on the left there is a short flight of steps down into a vaulted bar area. Descending into the vaults we found a room of almost ideal size and layout with seating for about 34 and space for the video projector and screen.

We spoke to Tracy who runs the pub with Rick who was, at the time, at the Lupin Farm gathering with his van built to look like a canal boat (!), and she said that they were happy to reserve the space for our meetings.

The Swan is a traditional canal-side pub decorated with canal signs and fittings decorated canal-boat style. It has its own car park with plenty of space for Sevens and outdoor seating if the weather suits an outdoor gathering.

A traditional canal-side pub

It is easy to get to, being accessed by the same junction on the A38 as the Crown at Elford but also accessible by the more Seven friendly lanes around the east of Lichfield. It even has the Curborough Sprint Course less than a mile away if anyone is up for a quick time trial

Our first meeting at the Swan will be on 14 September. We will have a video of recent events courtesy of Rex and a short talk by Steve Mincher of Self Drive Classics about the use of classic cars in films, TV and photo shoots so it should be an interesting evening. If anyone can attend our new venue with their Seven or other classic please do.