Saturday 26 September 2009

'The Crooked House'.

Saturday hello!

Hi Everyone!

Today Mr. Twins and myself went for a drive. It was such a lovely warm sunny day it almost felt like the middle of Summer and not the end of September. We drove over to Dudley in the West Midlands and visited one of our favourite spots. The Crooked House or 'Siden House'. The building has been a Midlands tourist attraction for well over a hundred years. The building is a typical Black Country pub, however, one side is four foot lower than the other as a result of subsidence from 19th Century coal mining. It was originally built as a farmhouse in 1765, it was then known as The Glynne Arms on becoming a public house. Now this is the amusing part.......Visitors can now experience a variety of optical illusions, including marbles rolling UPHILL and drinks sliding UP the table, before even touching a drop and as soon as you walk through the front door shown on the photograph you feel as though you have had too many to drink already! Well worth a visit.

We have visited The Crooked House numerous times and it never fails to amuse us. We had a nice lunchtime meal in the extended part at the back and then went for a walk nearby.

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The Restaurant inside The Crooked House pub.

It is a place not to be missed in the Black Country. Now I expect my Friends are wondering why we call the Black Country by that name? The Black Country is a loosely defined area of the West Midlands. To the North and West of Birmingham. By the late 19th century, this area had become one of the most intensely industrialised in the nation. The South Staffordshire coal mines, the coal coking operations, and the iron foundries and steel mills that used the local coal to fire their furnaces produced a level of air pollution that had few equals anywhere in the world.

It is believed that The Black Country got its name because of pollution from these heavy industries that covered the area in black soot. The Black Country is also known for its distinctive dialect.

Lunch was lovely and afterwards we drove to Merry Hill Shopping Centre. The shops are fantastic. It was opened in 1985. Next to the shopping centre is the Waterfront which is a leisure area consisting of a number of restaurants and bars and an office complex which is based around the Dudley Canal No.1, which used to service the old Round Oak Steel Works, which is now the Merry Hill Shopping Centre. The canal runs from Tipton towards the Stourbridge Canal travelling under the town of Dudley and Dudley Castle via the Dudley tunnel, then on to Merry Hill and down through a flight of locks, known as the Delph Nine Locks (there are actually now only eight locks.

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Hope you enjoyed the photos of an English pub although I can say there aren't any more of these crooked ones! This was always a regular place to go with my family when our children were little taking the Grandparents and enjoying a Saturday lunch.

Bye for now, have a good weekend all.

5 comments:

  1. The Crooked House sounds adorable! My kids would enjoy that.

    I love it when September comes around for the fall weather, but still gives us a few days of temps. reminiscent of summer :-)

    Thanks for visiting my blog. It appears that we share a love of pink :-). I admire your creativity.

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  2. Oh thank you Pink Ink! That's nice of you. I love Autumn, the change of colours.

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  3. What a lovely day you two Twins had. Sure enjoyed reading about all the history of the Crooked House. And then a trip to a mall, what more could you ask for... Oh, yeah, weather like a summer day.

    Don't panic yet, I'm here till next Saturday. Just gearing up and thinking of all the things to do. I will more than likely head to the library a couple of day. Not sure how the laptop will take the pictures, but I'll stop by to at least say HI, to all. I know I can't go cold turkey for a week without a computer.

    Quiet day for me, S had to work. So, I took a drive out into the country (30miles)to a yarn shop I had just heard about. It was nice, but can find most of the same stuff right up the street here in town at Lizzie's. But, after driving all that way, of course I had to pick up some yarn. Did get some fun blues,browns,creams 3 shades of each. Guess what I'm making....he-he.... Aiden Blanket...

    Tomorrow, we are going to try and get out a little. Soooooooooo, probably till Monday, have a good one. You never know I may pop back on...

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  4. What lovely places Sue! Very interesting crooked house. I hope one day, I might be able to visit these places.

    And I also hope you get to enjoy more dayouts with hubby. :~)

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  5. hello mrs twins! thanks for stopping by my blog! Love meeting new people and finding new blogs!
    what an interesting place youve posted about!I wish I were magic so I could pop in and out of all these faraway places that I would love to visit!! have a great week!
    hugs
    vivian

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