After reporting the thankfully apparently minor fire that occurred at the long-closed Rising Sun pub in Brownhills West on Friday, 5th August 2011, it seems that conflagration in former hostelries is contagious. The following Sunday, 7th August 2011, the old Water Margin restaurant further up the A5 was burnt out. This was a severe fire and the building is unlikely to survive. If the name doesn’t ring any bells, the restaurant was once the popular Fleur De Lys pub, the drunken walk back from which many a Brownhillian of a certain age will no doubt remember.

I hope this is a coincidence, an not part of a pattern. These incidents are always concerning, but these old inns seem to be going up in flames at an alarming rate. It’s almost like there’s a sequence emerging…

Blaze guts former restaurant

Monday 8th August 2011, 11:30AM BST.

A once-thriving Staffordshire restaurant has been destroyed in what is believed to be an arson attack. The Water Margin Chinese Cuisine Restaurant in Norton Canes was set alight early this morning and the ferocity of the blaze meant that 40 firefighters had to tackle it. The Watling Street restaurant, which has been closed for around 12 months, was completely gutted, with the roof reduced to the main beams and a few tiles…

 Read more at the Express and Star website