In my area, as is happening in many places, pubs are closing.
A few have been converted to living accomodation with a couple I know having a little mews built in the carpark but others where the building has been retained have been converted into....
First I noticed some years ago was McDonalds ( hence our local but world known fight - RAM ) but a couple of pubs have been converted into Tescos. ( Hanworth and nearby Hounslow)
Is this happening in other areas ?
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There's a Tesco Express near us (never visited it) that was once a pub. And a huge pub at that. And it was in decline from outside appearance for years. So now a viable business again instead of an unused building. I suspect upstairs Tesco has accommodation they let out. And like other developments for Tesco probably to Tesco staff.
I see this as progress... pubs are closing at a high rate and this makes the building useful for all. They look to have done a good conversion too. It was always an impressive building.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Tue 23 Oct 12 at 19:08
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I was in Richmond on Saturday and drove past the the old Matthaie cafe with its wonderful Art Deco shopfront. Now a Tesco Express but Tesco to their credit have preserved the old frontage.
notallwhowonderarelost.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/for-the-love-of-cake-the-old-matthaie-cafe/
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they could have done the tesco sign in Art Deco!
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This one near me was converted into a Tesco a couple of years ago.
tinyurl.com/8kpwxwx
I don't know if it's the one Rob J mentioned. It was always a dump, though. I've not been in for decades.....just an ale swilling place to cater for the local scrotoid residents. Catering, if any, by Hollands of Baxenden, I imagine. I remember it being built but can't for the life of me remember what was there before.
Just a wee drift, there is a building opposite now occupied by Blockbusters which once had a sort of motoring link.
After the Hitler war, and for the first 10 or so years of my childhood, it was a building used for assembling Blaw-Knox bulldozers. Anyone recall them ? They used to come in ruddy big crates and there always seemed to be a freshly made and painted one on the forecourt. Next door, now a KFC, was a derelict cinema, the Tivoli, bombed in the war and later re-built to become an Essoldo.
Ted
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What would you prefer, Tesco or Wetherspoons?
To the credit of the latter, they've made a damn good job of many banks, theatres and other good buildings.
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>> What would you prefer, Tesco or Wetherspoons?
>> To the credit of the latter, they've made a damn good job of many banks, theatres and other good buildings.
Tesco probably... we have an old style cinema local to us too. The owners have tried selling it for years and it might have ended up as a Wetherspoons type place. But didn't get planning permission. Trouble with converting it to another use is there is no parking at all.
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>> >> What would you prefer, Tesco or Wetherspoons?
>> >> To the credit of the latter, they've made a damn good job of many
>> banks, theatres and other good buildings.
>>
>> Tesco probably... we have an old style cinema local to us too. The owners have
>> tried selling it for years and it might have ended up as a Wetherspoons type
>> place.
Why? What's wrong with Wetherspoons?
I am a comparatively recent convert to Wetherspoons and I find the beer is well kept, with a good selection and at reasonable prices. Food likewise.
My local Wetherspoons (Walton on Thames) does Tuesday steak night - 8oz steak with all the trimmings and a pint of good beer, or a glass of wine, or a soft drink for £7 25. Similarly a roast on Sundays for the same sort of money. What's not to like about that?
I am as big a snob as anyone, but once you swallow your prejudices and actually go into a Wetherspoons, you might find you like it.
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>> What's wrong with Wetherspoons?
Are they open 24/7 during the week?
My local Tesco is, meaning I can buy beer, etc anytime I like ;)
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The Wetherspoons round the Holborn area are excellent in the does what's on the tin sense. Good beer well kept and with constant variety. Reasonable prices for drinks and food is incredible value. Alwys busy after work too.
The one on the Ward's Brewery site in Sheffield is good as well Very popular with students both in groups and being treated by their parents.
Other's report that in smaller towns the daytime clientele is more downmarket.
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>>Other's report that in smaller towns the daytime clientele is more downmarket.
I had a pint in one, lunchtime. What are you suggesting?
;>)
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I don't think Jacuzzi Thomas drinks in Wetherspoons. But I do.
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>> I don't know if it's the one Rob J mentioned
No. A different one. The one near me has been there for less than a year. On Google Street View it's still a pub.
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Here in sunny Ribblesdale we do our best to support 'local'pubs.
A charabanc trip out last weekend to Hawkshead, 3 decent pubs, a 4th ok, then home via The Watermill at Ings, Eagle & Child at Staveley, Plough at Lupton before our home local at journeys end.
A grand day out, doing our best for the local economy.
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>> charabanc trip
Did you really go on a charabanc? Been on something that was said to be a charabanc once but it had a roof. But windows that dropped down into the body. It was quite old. I was quite young at the time (10?).
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My experience of Wetherspoons is mainly positive. However I find that the one in my local town has people in it who are on their second pint at 1030 and are sitting at a table picking losers out of the Racing Post. The beer, food and prices are fine the clientèle not always so.
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Yes, I have to agree. The most important factor contributing to your Wetherspoons experience is where it is.
If it happens to be somewhere where the favourite pastime of the locals is to go out for a quiet drink, great. If it happens to be somewhere where the local idea of a good time tends towards the "shoving a glass in someone else's face" side of things, not so much.
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... restaurants, although remaining pubs nominally. Two of the five within 10 minutes' walk of my house have done this. One of these is now very classy and the other more down to earth, but each has retained a small lounge bar area for people who only want a drink.
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Co-op have recently converted a large inter-war era pub in my part of Reading in to a small supermarket. The pub in question is on the edge of the worst estate in the area, and was always a fulcrum for undesirables and anti-social behaviour. Good thing, really.
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I assume this one: goo.gl/maps/czQWd
interested because son's girlfriend lives in that area... :o
Last edited by: Focus on Wed 24 Oct 12 at 10:21
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No, that Co-op was never a pub.
FM2R - It was The Star on the corner of Amersham Road.
It's the Amersham Road estate that has the bad reputation, Focus, although it has improved somewhat in recent years. The rest of Lower Caversham is pretty harmless.
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>>The Star on the corner of Amersham Road.
That place was a dump 30 years ago! Never a particularly violent pub though, just grotty.
I guess the Amersham Road estate is the one behind the Red Cow? It didn't used to be that bad, although I guess it always showed the signs that it could go that way. They moved quite a lot of people there from Dee Road, although that might be before your time.
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>> I guess the Amersham Road estate is the one behind the Red Cow? It didn't
>> used to be that bad, although I guess it always showed the signs that it
>> could go that way. They moved quite a lot of people there from Dee Road,
>> although that might be before your time.
Yes. It's a bad estate in relation to the rest of genteel Caversham, never really hit the heights of Dee Road I'd say. I've been in Reading since the mid 90s, lived on the edge of the "notorious" Whitley Wood for a bit, but other than sugar in the petrol tank of my housemate's bay window camper (which he miraculously spotted before starting it up), we never had any trouble.
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>> No, that Co-op was never a pub.
Good :) (sorry)
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I think Chiltern Road might be a bit concerned about being called an estate"
As it is, that Co-Op used to be Dents the Newsagents, so its not that one.
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Mostly where I am it is mostly bars now, a lot of shops have turned into bars but a some of the bigger pubs have been pulled down or converted. There is one about mile from me which was a pub (the one Ted mentions) but it was nothing to be missed. There is another very big pub just down the road from that which is now closed, it was famous for hosting comedy nights of the likes of Peter Kay, Jason Manford, Caroline Aherne and Alan Carr etc.
The rock club I used to frequent (Jilly's Rockworld) is now a Tesco Express :(.
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 25 Oct 12 at 01:31
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You are very intermittent these days, Rattler. No problem, I trust - just lots of work?
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A quick Google threw up this:
bit.ly/UDt8fG
The old Pelican pub in Letchworth was, on Sunday, a fully stocked, shiny new Tesco apparently ready to open its doors this week. The Bird in Hand in Bedford went the same way last year, much to the annoyance of the two convenience store owners trading in the same 200ft-long parade.
My posting is getting quite intermittent lately, largely because this site will no longer load on my phone - I think the few excessively large recent threads have outgrown the cache on my Nokia. Not to worry, handset upgrade time soon. And I can still view C4P on the PC at home.
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Tesco are in the process of converting a shut pub near us. Lots of locals against it, but a few claiming the pub was a dive and to have the building used rather than empty is good. I tend to agree that I would rather see it in use plus a late opening store would be useful
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>> The old Pelican pub in Letchworth was, on Sunday, a fully stocked, shiny new Tesco
>> apparently ready to open its doors this week.
Slightly ironic given that Letchworth was originally a "dry" town. I lived there in the early 90's; the one redeeming feature of the town (apart from the original houses) was the Arena Tavern, where on a Sunday night a regular jazz combo included such luminaries as George Chisholm.
Last edited by: Harleyman on Thu 25 Oct 12 at 22:00
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Yeah been very busy over the last couple of weeks. There is a slight chance I have just landed an additional job too but that is all a bit hush hush but if it works out it will make my life a lot more comfortable!.
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There is currently a planning application for a pub in Bedale that has been closed for a fair while to be converted into a Tesco Express. Opinion in the town appears to be somewhat divided about the desirabilty of such a move. One thing is certain though: with no rear access and a narrow parking area in front (cars can park at right angles to the footpath on that part of the high street) unloading the delivery trucks will cause absolute chaos, especially as it is very close to a tricky 4 way offset junction.
Barbarians at the gates.
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I quite like Bedale, reasonable market last time I was there and and an assortment of shops hanging on including a couple each of bakers and butchers, and a green grocer IIRC.
Isn't there already a Coop as well?
I was disgusted to see a patsy interview with Terry Leahy on the BBC earlier this year - he was asked the usual question and gave the usual reply that the local shops only lose business because of customers exercising choice. This went unchallenged as usual, missing the point that even if a majority of shoppers prefer the local specialists, subtracting 20-30% of their business is enough to close them down - there just isn't room to add a Tesco to a small town with somebody being squeezed out.
Tring, a town of 12,000 people, basically lost the shops that Bedale, with half the population, still has when a fairly rubbish small Tesco opened edge of town a few years ago. The coup de grace was when M&S Food took over the central location formerly occupied by Budgens.
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This dates from 2007 so things may have changed.
"In Bicester you are never more than a few hundred yards away from a Tesco.
The Oxfordshire market town, home to only 29,000 people, has six Tesco stores — the equivalent of one for every 4,800 people and one of the highest concentrations in Britain."
I went to Endinburgh Zoo in the summer and in the bus on the way back to Princes Street I noticed that almost every parade of shops had a 24 hour Tesco Metro in it. There are 21 Tesco outlets within 5 miles of Waverley station!
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There is a decent CoOp and also a Spar. Until quite recently all the shops units were occupied but recently the computer shop, chocolate shop and a couple of others have closed. i am sure that the situation will only get worse when Tesco opens. Such a shame because it is a lovely little town.
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Tesco is the third biggest grocery retailer in the world, so it's not surprising there are so many stores.
However, on the flip side, Totnes have just had the experience of a big chain (Costa) deciding at the last minute NOT to open there, even though they had permission to do so, as they felt the town wouldn't welcome their presence.
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>>as they felt the town wouldn't welcome their presence<<
Amen to that brother!
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I've not been to Totnes since 1982. When I last went it was a town of little bookshops, and we loved it. It sounds as if it's a bit more like Glastonbury now. Are there still lots of bookshops, or have they all vanished?
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I was going to go on a meditation retreat in Totnes back in the 90's www.sharphamtrust.org/barn/
I went orf to Tenerife instead :-)
Good book (IMO) if you're interested in 'that-sort' of thing: normanrosenthal.com/about-transcendence.html
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a village pub near hear closed a few months ago and now has been turned into a co-op.
was a dreadful dump before so this time an improvement
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Totnes is a now a rather twee haven for the moneyed middle class arty crowd who like to think they are rather sophisticated and culturally superior. They live on organic rocket salad and tofu and are allergic to practically everything. They buy their books in quaint second hand book shops and visit second rate art galleries full of rural views by local artists. They never shop anywhere but the local shops (except once a month when they surreptitiously visit the huge Tesco superstore in nearby Newton Abbott) .
I can obtain much the same experience by visiting Burnham Market in N. Norfolk.
Costa do well to steer clear of the place!
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>>Crikey.
I'm on my way<<
+1
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Me too, sounds like heaven.
Pat
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Sounds an unholy triumvirate, guys.
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Oh, and they hate, simply hate caravans.
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Dont like Costa Coffee, or Caravans. I feel a house move coming on.
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and trainspotters.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Fri 26 Oct 12 at 19:23
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Oh they do, they have a heritage railway. Unlike Burnham Market.
Mind Totnes does not have Brancaster Mussels,.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 26 Oct 12 at 19:27
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They don't like artics delivering there either...I know that from the black looks I got!
Pat
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The wiki item is interesting - I'm sure many have no idea of the size. I didn't realise they were still operating the one stop shops - thought they had all become expresses.
Whatever you think of them, you have to admire them for their profitability and growth, and all grown from our small island!
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Went to meet up with some old codger friends last night to an historic little pub (this one www.pub-explorer.com/northwales/pub/antelopeinnbangor.htm ) - now described as an "eating house." I wasn't drinking and a good, convivial night out cost me a tenner - By buying 2x 2 meals for a tenner (there were three of us) we got some basic grub for £7.00 a head. Known this pub for years - the history has been stripped out (used to have historic prints of the HMS Conway wreck and the building of Britannia and Menai Bridges). But it served a purpose. It was disturbingly quiet. Talking of languages in another thread I was intruiged to overhear a young Asian girl speaking in local and very colloquial Welsh with her boyfriend. Seemed to be a cluster of beer only punters otherwise has become a nondescript eatery.
Last edited by: VxFan on Sat 1 Dec 12 at 16:01
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If I had a spare room not doing very much I'd almost be tempted to fit it out as an old fashioned pub.
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The changing face of pubs to.... - CGNorwich
