HBCP Dudley 3.Pdf
HITCHMOUGH’S BLACK COUNTRY PUBS DUDLEY (Inc. Harts Hill, Kates Hill, Priory, Woodside) 3rd. Edition - © 2014 Tony Hitchmough. All Rights Reserved www.longpull.co.uk INTRODUCTION Well over 40 years ago, I began to notice that the English public house was more than just a building in which people drank. The customers talked and played, held trips and meetings, the licensees had their own stories, and the buildings had experienced many changes. These thoughts spurred me on to find out more. Obviously I had to restrict my field; Black Country pubs became my theme, because that is where I lived and worked. Many of the pubs I remembered from the late 1960’s, when I was legally allowed to drink in them, had disappeared or were in the process of doing so. My plan was to collect any information I could from any sources available. Around that time the Black Country Bugle first appeared; I have never missed an issue, and have found the contents and letters invaluable. I then started to visit the archives of the Black Country boroughs. Directories were another invaluable source for licensees’ names, enabling me to build up lists. The censuses, church registers and licensing minutes for some areas, also were consulted. Newspaper articles provided many items of human interest (eg. inquests, crimes, civic matters, industrial relations), which would be of value not only to a pub historian, but to local and social historians and genealogists alike. With the advances in technology in mind, I decided the opportunity of releasing my entire archive digitally, rather than mere selections as magazine articles or as a book, was too good to miss.
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