The beloved wonky pub will have to be rebuilt (Picture: SWNS)
The owners of ‘Britain’s wonkiest pub’ have been ordered to rebuild it after it was destroyed in a fire – then demolished without council approval.
The Crooked House pub in Himley, Staffordshire, burnt down last August just days after being sold to a private buyer.
One side of the Crooked House, which operated as a pub for almost 200 years, was 1.2m lower than the other due to a subsidence issue in the 1800s.
Despite more than 10,000 people signing an online petition calling for the much-loved building to be saved from demolition, it went forward without council permission.
Now the owners will be forced to rebuild the wonky pub brick by brick to what it was ‘prior to the fire’.
South Staffordshire Council served an enforcement notice to the owners after the situation reached a point where ‘formal action was necessary’.
The pub burnt down in August last year (Picture: SWNS)
It was demolished two days later, infuriating locals (Picture: SWNS)
The demolition went ahead without council approval (Picture: PA)
Detective Inspector Richard Dancey of Staffordshire Police previously said: ‘This incident has caused a great deal of speculation locally and we understand the significance of the building within the local community.’
The Crooked House was originally built in 1765 as a farmhouse, and Historic England received a submission from experts asking for it to be given protected status just a week before the fire, according to The Telegraph.
As a result, fittings such as doors and windows appeared to have a distinct lean, and customers enjoyed the phenomenon of coins appearing to roll uphill along the bar.
The building was so beloved that one dad in Dudley, West Midlands, has spent 80 hours rebuilding a Lego model of the pub.
Chris Weaver visited the Crooked House when he was a child, and was heartbroken when it went up in flames just days after being sold to a new owner last August.
Chris’s 1.5ft x 1.5ft model captures both the interior and exterior of the Crooked House, with details including the Banks’s Ales signs on the front and the beloved grandfather clock inside.
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