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Old Barn Road, STOURBRIDGE, DY8 5XR

Brettell Lane here forms part of the A461 road. It is passing The Starving Rascal public house on the left. Further along the road, and glimpsed in the far distance on the left, it passes The Swan, another public house.

One of the surviving public houses in Brettell Lane. This one would appear to have once been a coaching inn. There used to be several more public houses along here including, to confuse matters, another one called The Swan on the same side of the road as this one. It had that name from when it opened in the mid-1800's until 1897, when it became the Builders Arms. It ceased trading in 1937. The surviving Swan should not be confused either with the Swan in Hagley Road, in Stourbridge's town centre, which is also still in business. Image

In times past when many people couldn't read, inn and pub signs needed to contain a subject that was easy to illustrate and to recognise. The swan or often the white swan became a popular name as a result. It was also associated with innocence and with royalty. Image

An open green space with grass and trees between Swanfield Road, where the photographer is standing, and Brambleside, the road in the distance.

One of Amblecote's several Good Beer Guide entries, on the corner of Collis Street and Brettell Lane.

This board, attached to the front of the public house, explains the sad background to the pub's name. Up to 1977 it was known as The Dudley Arms. Image Image

This sign was put up by Black Country Ales who now run this public house. Image Image

Old public house on the corner of Brettell Lane and Cullis Street. It is now one of the chain of real ale (& cider) public houses run by Black Country Ales. When photographed in June 2012 it was run by Enterprise Inns. See:- Image Image Image

An old pub on the corner of Collis Street and Brettell Lane. It normally has five real ales available. Until 1977 it was known as the Dudley Arms and can be found under that name in the 1901 Census. The pub has an unusual sign, with different designs on the two sides:- Image; Image Update: The pub is now run by Black Country Ales as a real ale (& cider) pub. See:- Image.

This pub used to be the Dudley Arms but in 1977 it changed its name to the present one. The name relates to an incident earlier in the 20th century when a tramp was turned away from the pub on a winter's night, after asking for shelter. He stayed on the doorstep and his frozen body was found the next morning. Quite why the pub wanted to "celebrate" this sad event by renaming itself in relation to the event is rather a mystery, except perhaps that at the time there was a fad for giving pubs unusual names and discarding ancient ones in the process. Why the poor man also got labelled a rascal is also unknown, but to anyone reading this in the distant future, it will tell you something about our society. The side of the sign shown in this photograph shows the tramp being turned away. Unusually the sign has different designs on the two sides. The other shows the tramp's ghost as quite understandably he has come back to haunt the place - poetic justice one might say. Image Image