The former Beech Tree public house, 111 Gorsty Hill Road, Blackheath, Rowley Regis

Image: © P L Chadwick Taken: 11 May 2014

Located on the corner of Gorsty Hill Road and Beeches Road, this building used to be a public house known as the Beech Tree. It was latterly owned by Daniel Thwaites, the Blackburn brewers. Unfortunately in the last decades of its life it gained a reputation as a rough house, where if you were unlucky you were more likely to receive a punch than a pint. It is very difficult for a pub to recover from this type of reputation, so it is perhaps no surprise that Daniel Thwaites put it up for sale some years ago. What the outcome was isn't clear. The windows are no longer boarded but it certainly isn't in use as a pub and probably never will be again. See also Row17's photograph showing the boarded up pub still with its signage:- Image Interestingly there is in the Blackheath area another pub of the same name. To distinguish them, locals referred to that one as the "Little Beech" and the one in Gorsty Hill Road as the "Big Beech". Records show that the pub was certainly here in the 1870's, although possibly it wasn't this actual building, which doesn't look old enough, unless it was perhaps externally refaced.

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0