Brownhills - Staffordshire

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Boat-Inn
Springhill c.1940

This pub is located at Springhill on the north side of the A461 dual carriageway to the south-west of Muckley Corner. It has been a popular watering hole on the Walsall to Lichfield Road for many a year. However, although the ancient highway has brought generations of tired travellers through the front door, the road was not the sole reason for the construction of a pub in this location. Today, drivers whizzing along the busy dual carriageway past the Boat Inn must wonder why the pub has such a name - after all, there isn't a drop of water in sight. However, the pub once stood alongside the Lichfield Canal, a short inland waterway measuring just over seven miles constructed in the late 18th century in order to connect the Wyrley and Essington Canal at Ogley Junction to the Coventry Canal at Huddlesford Junction. The canal closed in the 1950's and much of the route has been infilled. Trudge down the side of the Boat Inn and you will end up in the ditch that was once the canal. From here it is possible to see the extensive stabling blocks behind the pub - an indication of how busy the boat trade must have been here. The incentive for the canal was to transport the coal reserves of the Brownhills area to other parts of the country. Officially opened on May 8th 1797, water supply was a problem for the Lichfield Canal in the early years, particularly at Ogley Locks to the west of the Boat Inn. This was later solved with the construction of Norton Pool, a large reservoir that is today known as Chasewater. Not that this solution was without its problems - the dam burst in 1799 and caused quite a disaster to nearby infrastructure and the local economy. This is the reason for the very solid dam that can now be found at Chasewater. In the early part of the 20th century the Boat Inn was an outlet for the Blencowe Brewery. This company was founded in the mid-19th century by William Blencowe at Brackley in Northamptonshire. By 1894 the business was registered as William Blencowe and Co.Ltd; Brewers and Spirit Merchants. At some stage an amalgamation or buyout occurred and another brewery was based at Cannock. That site, along with 32 tied houses, was acquired by the Wolverhampton-based William Butler & Co.Ltd. in 1925. When the pub first opened for the canal trade, it was almost certainly a homebrew house though the transportation of beers produced elsewhere would have found their way here via the canal network. Both born a few miles to the east in Shenstone, Charles and Sarah Hilton were running the Boat Inn during the early 1860's. They lived on the premises with their two sons Robert and Charles. The fact that they employed two servants, Elizabeth Stringer and Emma Patrick, suggests that it was a busy hostelry. Born in 1827, Charles Hilton was the son of a baker but following his marriage farmed some 48 acres at Wood End. A later publican of the Boat Inn combined farming with his duties as a victualler. George Pointon kept the pub with his wife Jane during the early 1880's but was also recorded as a farm labourer, suggesting perhaps that trade had declined at the Boat Inn. George grew up in a pub as his father Thomas was both a butcher and innkeeper in the Staffordshire village of Ranton. The name of George Yates can be seen above the door in this photograph when the pub was selling Highgate ales. The Yates family were involved in a number of pubs in the neighbourhood. The freehold of the Boat Inn was offered for sale at auction in March 1954 following the death of James Machin Yates. The auction was held at the pub by Messrs. Winterton & Sons of Lichfield. The sale notice advised potential bidders that the pub was generating a gross annual income of £1,280.0s.0d. The sale notice described the accommodation of the Boat Inn that included a club room with oak block floor and brick fireplace. The smoke room featured a quarry tiled floor, two modern fireplaces and a bar counter framed and panelled with mahogany top. The public bar also featured a quarry tiled floor, wood framed wall benching and a fitted bar and counter. There was also an outdoor department with a hatch servery. 
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TECHNICAL DATA
Date: c.1940
Source: 6x4 Photograph
Maximum Size: 655x870 Pixels   1.42 Mb
Format: JPEG