End-of-an-era; The Public House (4)

I find myself in an odd position here.  Banging on about a subject, yet I’ve not actually been in a Public House (‘pub’) for…I forget.  Oh, no, I remember, I said once before, 2010, on the day of the funeral of my Aunt.

Anyway, I noticed yesterday, driving past the building that was once ‘The Warren’ that notices are up on the temporary wooden partition that now surrounds all building works in the UK – quite why (law?  good practice?) I don’t know.  Anyway, the signs show that the building is to become a ‘Tesco Metro’, a rival company (albeit larger) than the one (Sainsbury’s) working on the (smaller building) ‘Duke of Wellington’ at the other end of the road.

Other Public Houses I have kept my eye on appear to have got new tenants; ‘George V’ and ‘Golden Fleece’ have, the latter putting out loads of banners indicating a themed night just about every night (Pool, curry, whatever).  ‘George V’ seems to have rather an amateur as the new tenant, given the poor quality of the new signs.

I did not report ‘The Terriers’ (which I remember as ‘The Black Boy’) which was up for sale, but now under new management, as the phrase goes, also under the tie of a brewery company formerly unknown in the area – Greene King.  What I remember as ‘The Cock Inn’ (on Cock Lane) has morphed yet again – it was closed for some time after its ‘Red Lion’ incarnation – as ‘The Junction’ restropub.

I wonder just how much the current recession is both populating these surviving pubs with new tenants, and the dire state of the market they are competing in.