Libby Warren with the new exhibition. Image from Walsall Local History Centre.

This is just a quick note to flag up a great exhibition starting this Saturday, 20th August 2016 at Walsall Local History Centre – it’s about local pubs and their history which is a recurring topic of huge interest to the local history community.

This looks like an excellent thing, and I comment it to anyone interested in the history of alehouses, inns and off licenses locally – which were often focal points of the community as well as places to drink and be merry.

How many folk realise, for instance, that inquests were regularly held at local pubs like the Black Cock and Horse and Jockey?

The staff of the history centre have made some remarkable contributions to the Brownhills Blog, and I’d like to draw readers attention to some of them, like  the Yates Map of Staffordshire and The great Walsall Wood subsidence mystery or even The lost mortuary in Bullings Heath.

There is an excellent team at Walsall Local History Centre who provide a largely free service to everyone from serious family historians to muppets like me involved in the most bizarre bits of local history. This service is the jewel in Walsall’s cultural crown and we need to cherish and protect it.

New Exhibition Sheds Light On Pub History In Walsall Borough

Walsall Local History Centre, the archive and local studies service for the Walsall Metropolitan Borough, is launching its latest public exhibition this Saturday 20th August 2016 – its first dedicated to the ever-popular topic of historic public houses!

The new ‘PUBS GALORE!’ display, which has been set up in the exhibition area of the Centre in Essex Street, north Walsall, by staff member Libby Warren with the support of colleague Stuart Williams, combines an evocative and nostalgic mix of exhibition photographs, reproduced documents and historic data from the Centre, plus original objects from the collections of the former Walsall Museum, and offers something for everyone, from brewing enthusiast to local or family historian.

Libby Warren said ‘We hold a vast collection of archives relating to the pubs of Walsall and its Borough and we have endeavoured to display examples of some of the wonderful photographs and documents that we hold here at the centre.

‘Everybody gets excited when they discover that they have a pub landlord in their ancestry, and are always eager to discover more. The exhibition features over 100 photographs of pubs and their landlords, with documents dating back to 1663 as well as some artefacts which have been kindly loaned by Walsall Museums.’

The exhibition will run from this Saturday until 15th November 2016, and admission is free during normal Centre opening hours: Tuesday 10am – 4pm, Wednesday 10am – 7pm, Thursday 10am – 1pm, Saturday 10am – 1pm.

On-site car parking, including disabled, is available free of charge.

For further details of the Centre, which is part of Walsall Council, telephone 01922 652212 or check out the website: http://www.walsall.gov.uk/localhistorycentre/

Walsall Local History Centre, Essex Street, Walsall, WS2 7AS, West Midlands.