Former drinkers at Wolverhampton city centre pub urged to share memories for new project

Poet and author Emma Purshouse is inviting anyone who drank in or remembers the Tavern in the Town, which was a part of Wolverhampton city centre from the 19th century up until it closed its doors in 1990, to get in touch.

The pub, which went under various guises, was set within what is now the Yorkshire Building Society building on Queen Square, a building with Tudor-thatched walls, and ran all the way through to Woolpack Alley at the entrance to the Mander Centre.

A former part of the pub from its days as the Shakespeare Wine Lodge can be seen in the alleyway next to the Catch 22 training centre.

Emma, who was a patron herself in the early 1980s, said it was a popular place among rockers and people who liked music and spoke about what the project was aiming to do and the time it was aiming to commemorate.

She said: "We've been given funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to produce a newspaper, exhibition and oral history about the Tavern in the Town, a really old building which opened as a pub in the 1800s, but the time we're interested in is from the early 70s to when it closed.

"It was kind of a biker and rocker type of pub and I think that anyone who was into rock music or bikes would have gone in there at some point, so we're really keen to speak to people who remember going in there.

"I do remember going there in there from the early 80s until it closed and it had a strange atmosphere because it kind of swooped up, starting in Queen Square and coming out on the alley, but the jukebox was amazing, people met there before gigs and people are still friends now."

Emma said there was still a lot of nostalgia for the pub, with a very active Facebook page, and said the plan of the exhibition was to tell the tales of the pub and the wider history of rock music in the city.

She said: "It's about evoking people's memories about going there, so that might be socialising with friends they made in there or meeting before going to a gig or talking about the gig they went to.

"The pub was a meeting point and we'd love to hear about any characters they might remember and any stories they may have, while also finding out what they are doing now and what the long haired youths of that time have gone on to do."

The exhibition of the details and interviews by Emma are set to appear in one of the empty shops in the Mander Centre, and Emma said it will be a multimedia piece.

She said: "We're working with a professional photographer as well who is going to portraits of people as they look down and we're also going to collect photographs of the pub and from people who have memorabilia.

"We'll also have a newspaper, which is being designed by Steve Pottinger, who I've worked with before, and the whole thing is set to be a nostalgia piece.

"It'll commemorate the fact that this is a rock town where a lot of people were into the music and about recording and saving that."

Anyone who would like to get involved in the project can message Emma by emailing poetsprattlerspandemonialists@gmail.com or going to pandemonialists.co.uk