• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

The Longboat, Cambrian Wharf

Barr_Beacon

Barr_Beacon

The Prodigal Brummie
Just read that they are planning to demolish The Longboat in Cambrian Wharf. I must admt that when I visited it last year it felt a little bit run down, but I always remember the summers I spent there, especially the long hot summer of 1976. Lump in the throat time!

List of pubs that have gone that I still remember...

Bogarts
The Windsor (the REAL one)
The Parisian
Cagney's
The Costermonger
The Pen and Wig
The White Swan (Edmund St)
The Church Inn / Cathedral Tavern
The Bier Keller (Needless Alley)
St. Paul's Tavern (Ludgate Hill)
The Golden Eagle (Hill St.)
The Parasol (Hill St.)
The Crown (Broad St.)
The Australian Bar (Hurst St.)
The White Lion (Bristol St.) (I loved Davenport's Continental Lager!)
The pub above the Bodega , opposite St. Chad's Cathedral
The Philibuster (! desperately tryning to relaim those dead brain cells!)
The Three Horse Shoes (Pershore Rd)
The Red Lion (Vicarage Rd.) (Still much the same, not many left!))
The Nelson (Top of Temple St. near the cathedral)
The Royal Mail (New St.)
Tavern in the Town (New St.)
The Old Contemptibles
The Horse Trader (Horsefair)
The Greyhound (Cider house, Bath Row)
The Glue Pot / Sam Weller's (John Bright St.)

Sorry for using up valuable space but I felt I had to try to remember while I still could!
 
hi barr beacon. ha the longboat.i remember it well. used to go there bout 70/72. we had some good times there. i must go and take some pics before yet another of our pubs sinks without trace. excuse the pun. i also went to the bier keller. i walked down needless alley last week from the top end. can you confirm that it was on the right going down towards new st. also had good times in the fili and the costamonger. thats still there. wales.
 
Barr Beacon

A lot of the pubs you name are still open today, although heavily disguised and may often masquerade under different names. Sadly though as you observe a lot of them have gone, and it looks like it is a ongoing trend.

Phil
 
One of my cousins ran a Rhythm & Blues Club at The Golden Eagle, when Spencer Davis and Steve Winwood played there.
I remember sunny days late 60's early 70's at The Longboat. Did the sun shine more then?

Ann
 
hi ann. im sure the sun shone more in those days. we were both going there at the same time. late 60s early 70s. may have sat next to each other even. one song that always takes me back to the longboat when i hear it is cher singing gipsies tramps and theives. it was always being played. wales.
 
Hi Lyn,

I worked on Broad Street late 60' early 70's, so The Longboat was a great place for sunny lunch hours. Bet we sat next to each other somewhere. Or perhaps we met in the ladies, putting our lippie on! I guess lots of us on the forum have been at the same place same time, somewhere in the past.
Procul Harum's '67 hit 'A Whiter Shade of Pale' always takes me back to long sunny days. We had a girls holiday in Torquay that summer and that song was played at all the clubs and pubs. When it comes on the radio, I get goose bumps.
And The Beach Boys 'God Only Knows'.

Ann
 
Last edited by a moderator:
ann. ive noted those two songs down. if ive got them or if not i can find them will play them for you as requests on the 60s night. wicked songs. lyn ps if keith can have his man in a suitcase theme you shall have yours. lol
 
My friend almost lived in the Trocadera on Temple Street in the 60's she worked for Raymond, Mr Teasy Weasy so they went after work. I thought it would have been closed but I just Googled it and see it is still open.:) Mo
 
hi sakura. yes the troc is still going strong. think ive got a book somewhere saying that its haunted. i will look it out. wales.
 
Hi Wales
The Bier Keller was on the right hand side of Needless Alley as you walked down to New Street. There was also a Bier Keller under Bogarts in New Street.

A couple of pubs I forgot to mention were The Gilded Cage and The Iron Horse opposite (Stephenson Place?). I can't say I was impressed by either as I recall!
 
Just catching up on the last few weeks posts having been forced to come home to the lovely English weather!

Here's one of the Longboat as many of you will remember it, appropriately with the longboats moored alongside

Bob
 

Attachments

  • City Longboat Hotel Canal Basin.jpg
    City Longboat Hotel Canal Basin.jpg
    119 KB · Views: 64
I used the pub sometimes in the 70s but this pic is 1992. I don't think it had changed much by then.

Bob
 
I remember the Trocadera from the fifties when it was run with a rod of iron by Mr & Mrs Phroo, even raising your voice was frowned upon. I seem to remember reading on a notice inside that it started life a a private fire station owned by an insurance company.
There was a second one relating how when a member of the staff was sacked he came back and shot the manager
 
Hi Folks!

The Longboat was a fave haunt of mine after work with my friend Paula Breese as she worked close by at the DSS. I hope I have attached this pic correctly. It is me (not drunk, but looks very much like I have imbibed 23 V&T's!) after just tripping down the steps outside the pub in the mid eighties.Hope it works.
I understand the area has now changed to a great extent. I must have a wander over there when next in the city.

After work pubs have included the Mercat Cross in Digbeth (is that still there? It used to open very early for the market traders..they used to have bands playing and had my 18th birthday party in there.) The Adam and Eve in Bradford Street, The Hostaria Wine Bar in Hurst Street (very chic, best clothes always!!) and the Yard of Ale in in the city centre. A wee tincture after a stressful day! There was another pub in Digbeth, called the Barrel Organ. Just by the bus station..again had bands playing and the Crossroads cast could be found drinking in there most lunchtimes!

Slainte! ;)
 
Oh I remember the Longboat well. We used to go in there for our 'tutorials' when on Post Grad (well more like drowing our sorrows reallylol). I used to love that place back in the 70s.
 
Some of the Crossroads cast used to use The Anchor in Rea Street as well. Their rehearsal rooms were in Bradford Street. (They used to rehearse???) Some were OK, some were stand-offish. Noele Gordon didn't, she wouldn't mix with us riff-raff! She had a penthouse apartment at the top of one of the Sentinels, the tall flats at the Bristol Rd / Holloway Head junction.
 
I wonder how The Longboat got it's name. It seems to me that all of the boats around there were known as narrow boats. Maybe there was a converted sea going longboat around.
 
Rupert
I think it's just one of those typical cases where marketing people know nothing about a subject, and don't care. I seem to remember there were a number of comments about the incorrect name at the time it was opened, but no notice was taken. Its the same as when people refer to "battleships" and often just seem to mean warships.
Mike
 
I used to play banjo at the Adam and Eve with the New Orleans Jazz Men in the late fifties. Bobby Pratt trumpet, Charlie Powell trombone, George Huxley clarinet. Is the pub still there?
 
Last edited:
Does anybody have any photos of the Longboat pub when it used to have the floating bar on a boat (butty) then named Squirrel? Around about mid 70's to early 80's... I have one but it isn't very clear. Thanks x
 
Went past there the other day,think the name has changed.
 

Attachments

  • flapper & firkin.jpg
    flapper & firkin.jpg
    160.1 KB · Views: 45
In my days in the Troc in the fifties there was a framed press cutting on the wall about the barman who was sacked and came back later and shot the manager. Before becoming a pub it was said to have been a private fire station belonging to the Norwich Union. No public fire service in those days, your insurance company provided the fire service.
 
I read with sadness that planning permission is being sought to demolish The Longboat and replace it with more than 60 apartments.

https://www.birminghampost.co.uk/bu...y/new-flats-replace-birmingham-music-13992736

I know people will correct me and tell me that the pub is now called The Flapper but to me it will always be The Longboat, the pub where I spent many happy summers especially the long hot summer of 1976 sitting on the balcony in my youth with my girlfriend (now my wife).
 
oh thats is sad news....i also spent many happy hours in the longboat which as you say is now called the flapper...used to go in there after rollar skating at springhill rollar rink (also gone) late 60s early 70s..

lyn
 
I was never a regular drinker but I have had a quick half in several city pubs but have never been in this one. Strange to say I do not remember ever picking up there in my years as a taxi driver. A friend who lived just off Spring Hill tells me that it was a nice place for a pint after a days work, all his memories are from when it was The Longboat.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top