Known as “Britain’s wonkiest pub”, the Crooked House was a pub in South Staffordshire, England with a truly unique appear appearance.  Because of 19th-century mining subsidence, one side of the building is approximately 4 feet lower than the other causing all sorts of optical illusions inside the building.  This is a pub where you might feel a bit woozy BEFORE you’ve even ordered a drink.  The building was built in 1765 as a farmhouse on Oak Farm.  It was converted into the Glynne Arms pub in the 1830s and somewhere along the way, subsidence from the nearby underground coal mines caused one side of the building to begin gradually sinking.  As it did so, the owners just braced the building as best they could, straightened the lintels and window sashes and kept the pub serving the miners. 

Over the years, a number of fires and small calamities have befallen the pub but it kept standing.  Eventually the whole structure was braced with steel girders and other bracing to keep this unusual structure standing.  Britain’s “wonkiest pub,” has delighted thirsty coal miners and visitors in this quiet corner of England’s Black Country for nearly two centuries.  Sadly, in August of 2023, the 258-year-old leaning pub of Himley burned in what appears to be arson. After the fire, the building’s frontage, including its slanted windowsills and door frame, survived. The Staffordshire Council visited the site and discussed a plan with the pub’s new owners on how to preserve what remained for its historic value.  The burned remains were then illegally demolished use of an excavator by the owner.

Since the fire was suspicious and other historic pubs illegally demolished in England have been ordered rebuilt, several of the pub’s patrons are organizing a campaign for the pub to be rebuilt brick by brick.  One group of 100 nearby residents, are proposing a “Crooked House law” in Parliament to bolster protections for historic pubs and other buildings across the nation. Earlier this year, a judge ruled that the 18th-century Punch Bowl Inn must be rebuilt by the property developers who destroyed it without permission. The Carlton Tavern was reopened in 2021 after the local council ordered its owners to reconstruct the building “in facsimile” when the pub was demolished after its owners had asked to repurpose the building into apartments and the council refused. 

It’s always a difficult balancing act to preserve treasured landmarks and historical structures while providing needed and profitable business infrastructure to a community.  Sadly, a crooked little man could not keep the Crooked House Pub.

There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile,
He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

— Mother Goose

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