Home > Warwickshire > Birmingham > B6 > Marquis Of Lorne Marquis Of Lorne

Picture source: Paul Peacock

The Marquis Of Lorne was situated on the corner of Cecil Street and New Town Row. This pub was demolished in the 1970s.

I lived in the Marquis of Lorne for a few years in the late 1950's. The pub was an architectural gem and would be a listed building now, featuring extensive and finely detailed terracotta. My dad had a series of Ford Zodiacs and in this photo there's one parked right outside the rear gate where he used to park his car... so I'm claiming this as a photo of his car/pub when we were in residence. My bedroom was in the top left dormer window. You can also see a strange shanty, like a three storey cantilevered garden shed to the rear of the pub, but not part of it. I well remember this collapsing one day and showering our pub with dust and dirt. All the glasses had to be washed. It looks about ready to collapse in the photo. They don't build them like they used to! This was the venue for the infamous Irish riot my dad caused. The pub had two function rooms, one upstairs behind the Marquis of Lorne signage and another, smaller room downstairs. He was approached by an Irish family to cater in the upstairs room for a wedding. At the same time he agreed to host a wake for a deceased Irishman in the downstairs room. My dad clearly was unaware of Irish religious politics, for one party was Catholic and the other party was Protestant. You can imagine the result. The pub had to close the next day awaiting a delivery of new glasses. It took that day for a team of cleaners to put the place back together and I was always puzzled by the lack of bar stools from that day forward. My dad's ex police dog, an Alsatian named Rosa, saved my life in this pub! I was asleep upstairs with parents working in the pub two floor below. A gas leak developed and Rosa, smelling danger, ran downstairs barking furiously. Luckily my parents responded and got me out to fresh air. I spent a night in hospital which I hated, and remember lying to the doctor that I felt perfectly well. He discharged me, and I returned home with an enormous yet secret headache which took days to clear. Ahhh, I can still smell the stale beer and cigarette smoke I grew up with. The sound of some drunk, in the bar downstairs, playing an accordion to a cats chorus of inebriates most night is also etched in my memory. Sometimes he bought in his bagpipes!

Paul Peacock (April 2023)

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