California Inn Northfield

[www.midlandspubs.co.uk]

Re: California Gold Rush
Being something of a romantic myself, I would love such a tale of adventure to be true. However, the name is not unique - another local example being in Blackheath where, ironically, the same local legend pervades. Secondly, it is thought that Isaac Flavell acquired Stonehouse Farm in 1842 whereas the Californian gold rush only really went into full swing after James Marshall discovered deposits at Sutter's Mill in 1848.

 

[Simon4130]

It's sad to see the California name falling out of use now, not even mentioned on modern maps. Good to see locals still use it as it's part of the history of the area. California is at least still used on the bus timetables and destinations.

Simon

 

[northender]

Connections with the Carl Bridgewater case.

 

[Stitcher]

I am assuming that this is the same California Pub.

 

[Pawe]

Yes I used to live at The Cali it was my dad's pub. It was big upstairs had 8 bedrooms..

 

[Toni62]

Anyone know if the California Inn still survives? Any pictures available?
A distant rely George Hughes and his wife Harriet lived there from about 1860 to 1890, and adopted a Kate Fellows b 1880 (thus my interest) she went on to live at Shendley Court Farm, Northfield. Thanks

It's a Garage now

 

[Dinger]

I remember the California pub well - It was built in the "Roadhouse" style popular in the 20s and 30s, although technically too small to be a proper roadhouse. It had plenty of parking places (for the time) and originally had a large beer garden at the back. When it was built the area was still semi-rural so it would have attracted folk taking their cars out for a spin in the country. I remember it had an off-licence entrance on the Alwold Road side of the Pub. The tall brick pillar outside it was topped by a big plaster "cornucopia" of fruit - grapes the size of footballs, oranges the size of beach balls. The Pillar came tumbling down on the afternoon of Friday 28th June 1968 when a tornado swept through. It took the roofs off two of the shops in the parade opposite (to this day you can still see the different style of roof tiles used to replace them). The tornado went down Alwold Road, bending street lamps and doing more damage. It swept over the Castle ruins and Paganal junior school thankfully doing no damage - the kids (I was one of them) had just come in from the playground after our afternoon break. The tornado then followed the Bourne Brook and touched down again briefly in one of the car parks at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, doing some damage to cars. I got a good look at the remains of the pillar and its fruit strewn along the road on my way back from school. The tornado only got a passing reference in the local paper and a brief mention on the local TV news the following day. At the time I don't remember anyone calling it a "Tornado", it was called a "Whirlwind" by us kids. As someone has already mentioned, the pub was later rebranded as "Whispers" (I seem to remember it had a rather garish neon sign) before being pulled down and replaced by the current BP filling station. A KFC is opposite it.

 

[Dinger]

Aerial view from about 1945. You can see that the area to the West was still mostly fields. There used to be a small cinema on Barnes Hill then, the building is still there, now it's a Kwik-Fit tyre outlet.

 

[www.midlandspubs.co.uk]

Location of earlier California Inn ...

 

[www.midlandspubs.co.uk]

The earlier California Inn ...

 

[Vivienne14]

There are two threads for the California Inn so I've merged them. There may be earlier unseen posts. Viv.

 

[Dinger]

Interesting... This map shows the "old" pubs position relative to the "new" pub. The old pub would have been close to the car park entrance to the current Asda Barnes Hill store. Probably about What3words location trial.whip.quest. In the 1960s that whole area on the edge of the brick quarry was cordoned off with high fences and advertising hoardings and used for the storage of road salt (as seen in this old photo looking down from "Rose's Caf", where the traffic island with the Fire Station is now). It's interesting to see that on this old map the Stonehouse pub does not yet exist - I always assumed by their building styles that the Stonehouse would have been built before the "New" California pub - but obviously not - Looking up the Stonehouse elsewhere in these Forums I see it didn't open until 1938.