HISTORIC INN

Evening Star, Issue 19455, 13 January 1927, Page 6

HISTORIC INN

' -■s*CGAGKING HOUSE DOOMED NO WOMEN ALLOWED. Tbo Swan Hotel, one of the most famous coaching inns in England, which lias retained many of its original characteristics, although it stands in the centre of the busy city of Birmingham, is doomed. . Tho historic building at the corner of New street and High street still has part of tho old coaching yard, and a sixteenth century atmosphere still lingers in the quaint old rooms. It is almost crowded out of sight by surrounding buildings, and it is nearly impossible now to see wbat it looked like in foot), when it stood by itself in liclds—the starting point of tho coaches that ran through Warwick and Aylesbury to the Bed Lion, in Aldergate street, London. No women are allowed to eat, drink, or sleep in the place, and it is _ a hard-and-fast rule that no commercial travellers shall bring their wives there. The dining room contains one long table, and before a guest takes a scat for a meal ho observes the old custom of bowing to the “ president ” at the head of the table and saying, ‘‘ May I dine with you, Mr President?” This same old hostelry and several other buildings dose by on a piece of ground known ns tho Quadrant have been purchased by the corporation for £I]G.LOO, so that they may he demolished, and so abolish tbo blind corner ” which now troubles drivers_ of vehicles coming up from the Bull Bing into High street. The lease of tbo Swan expires in 1929, and then this famous inn. which has been the temporary home of many thousands of travellers, will dose its doors for the last time.

Although no women ore allowed in the Swan it< is .rnn by women. The proprietress is Mrs Annie Butler, and fourteen of her staff of seventeen ore women. One of the rooms of the hotel has been taken over by the Savage Club, hut the members are allowed to entertain their wives and women friends for half an hour on Christmas Day only.