Story behind The Black Horse

In about 1880, the late Baron Davenport purchased a tiny beer-house known as The Black Horse in Northfield, South Birmingham, and rebuilt it. He believed that the day of the small pub was almost over, and that its modern successor would have far greater social amenities than the little taverns of the past. With that idea in mind, he employed as architects Messrs. Batemans of Birmingham, whose work included types of building other than those usually associated with the licensed trade. They set out to reproduce the beauty of the great ecclesiastical houses, the designs of the Tudor period, and particularly, to associate the appearance of the inns with the architecture of the districts in which they were to be built.

The new Black Horse was carried out in the best traditions of the Cotswold craftsmen. There is a pathetic incident attached to an uncompleted mantelpiece in one of the smoke-rooms. It was carved by an old stonemason, who died while working on it. The old man said he had never thought at his time of life to have had the opportunity of doing such a craftsmanlike job, and expressed a dying wish that his last work might be left unfinished. It still remains so.

Bowls in 1950

The Black Horse is a half-timbered, gable-surmounted mullion-windowed, Tudor doorwayed building, more reminiscent of some stately baronial hall of Elizabethan days than of a public house.

It was opened in 1929. In the northern gable end are carved the initials 'B.D.' the only reference in the building to the man who started a new trend in hostelry design. At night powerful floodlights illumine the entire frontage, giving the effect of a huge backcloth at a theatre.

The Black Horse exemplifies the modern idea of how liquor in quantities should be dispensed. Gents' smoke-room, mixed smoke-room, assembly room, a first-class bowling green. It is as distinct from the old-fashioned small pub as can be imagined.

Patio area in 2015

Miss Margaret Bondfield, when Minister of Labour, signing the visitors' book, said : 'This is one of the most beautiful houses I have ever seen' ; while H. V. Morton wrote : 'It is something new in the history of refreshment'. If people want to drink, with their friends and neighbours, in numbers bigger than they can cater for in their own homes, what better place is there than the modern pub ? That was what Baron Davenport thought. It is why he built The Black Horse as he did. (Norman Tiptaft 1951)