The Tontine, Severn Side

Image: © P L Chadwick Taken: 26 Dec 2010

This large building has a complicated history of use. It was built in the late 18th century for the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal Company, and known as Tontine Buildings. Its original purpose was to act as the company's headquarters and as a commercial hotel. The hotel part was originally known as The Stourport Inn, Tontine Buildings. Later it was The Areley Inn, and then The Tontine Hotel. By the dawn of the 21st century a central part of the building was in use as a pub, not a hotel. The rest had been empty for many years. The pub was just called The Tontine. The Gothic styled porch of around 1870 marks the entrance to the former pub. However the brewery that owned the whole building put forward an application in 1977 to demolish it. After fierce opposition, including from the late Sir John Betjeman, the building was saved. The pub closed in 2001. The building was acquired by British Waterways and several years later it was turned into 14 units of residential accommodation. It is rather a shame that the building could not still have retained a pub within it. The position is superb, and I can recollect the days when the lawn outside was full of people sitting at picnic tables. Just below the lawn is the wide (barge) lock to the canal basins. However the building itself, probably the most important Georgian building in the town, has been saved, for which we must be grateful. Photographed from across the River Severn.

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