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The
Queen's Head, Tunstall
  
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Historian Fred Hughes
writes....
The audacious Betty Boop is currently tickling the fancy of the patrons of
a Tunstall cafe putting a smile on everyone’s face with her 1930’s overt
sex appeal.
The audacious Betty Boop
“Betty Boop is an animated cheeky girl once fashionable with cinemagoers
during the Great Depression years,” historian Steve Birks tells me.
“Although she is a cartoon Betty’s popularity was drawn mostly from adult
audiences. She made a cameo appearance in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger
Rabbit when her career was reignited. A British version appeared as a
cartoon strip in the wartime Daily Mirror called Jane. But Betty Boop’s
fame went right around the world.”
I discovered this caricature of seduction in High Street when Tunstall
historian Don Henshall was giving me the lowdown on a former Tunstall pub
which many imbibers will remember as the Queens Head.
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“The Queens Head was a modern pub built in 1960 when the area was
cleared for the new Scotia Road,” Don points out. “In timescale this
part of Tunstall is fresh, and I suspect there aren’t many people now
who remember what the street layout was like only fifty years ago. For
instance the roundabout wasn’t here. Tunstall roundabout is probably the
biggest in the Potteries. It covers the site of a huge pottery
originally known as the Swan Pottery owned by Lingard Webster & Co whose
wholesale demolition completely altered High Street to make a major
junction with Scotia Road. Before this everything passed through the
middle of the town making it a traffic nightmare.”
1898 OS map showing the location of the Swan
Pottery
Meanwhile Steve informs me that in the 1950’s the council decided to
change all the city’s duplicated street names.
“Amicable Street was renamed Butterfield Place and it marked the
absolute end of Scotia Road where it literally came to a full stop,” he
says. “A little further on was Station Road which was renamed The
Boulevard.”
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I ask Don how important it was to make a bypass.
“It was crucial,” he declares. “Before 1960 the increasing traffic passing
through Tunstall turned the High Street into a peak time logjam which
could only be rectified with radical measures. Naturally this required
extensive demolition. All the buildings on the top east side, and behind
High Street, were bulldozed to make way for the new road which was to be a
continuation of Scotia Road. Hall Street was torn down along with the
Railway Inn and the Loopline Inn. One street leading directly from High
Street simply disappeared without trace and that was Hunt Street leading
to Park Terrace. You can see where it began if you know what you’re
looking for. But there is a building in place of the entrance now.”
Betty’s Diner, High Street, Tunstall
- originally built as a pub and called the Queen's Head -
(the first Queen's Head was what is now a chary shop next to the diner)
And this is where Betty Boop comes in. Following the redevelopment the
brewery built a brand new pub smack bang in the middle of the entrance to
Hunt Street and named it the Queens Head. These days it is a cafe called
Betty’s Diner run by Jayne Lownds.
“We’re a family business started nine months ago,” says Jayne. “I only
knew it was a pub when some customers told me. Before I became the owner
it was a classy cafe decorated with Art Deco furnishings called
Clarice’s after Tunstall-born Clarice Cliff. Perhaps it was too chic to
succeed.
Anyway I changed it to traditional breakfast and lunches. I wanted it to
be colourful without posh so I began displaying Betty Boop memorabilia.
Everybody liked it and even my customers have brought stuff in to
display. It’s really taken off.”
Indeed it’s impossible to escape from the sassy animation shaking her hips
and staring you out with big glad eyes. But what happened to the pub?
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“There was one on each corner of Hunt Street,” Don continues. “The one on
the south corner was the original Queens Head. It closed many years ago
and is currently a Douglas Macmillan charity shop. The other pub was the
more prestigious Swan Hotel which had its own brewery at the rear.
The Swan was the pub that was demolished along with the shops and the
potbank and the owners were given permission to build a replacement which
they did in the space where the entrance of Hunt Street had been. But for
some quirky reason this new pub was renamed the Queens Head.
this charity shop was the original Queens Head
To make it clear – the charity shop was the original Queens Head; the new
Queens Head replaced the Swan. Anyway the new pub was really successful to
begin with situated on the doorstep of the popular Ritz Cinema.
What more could a cinemagoer want after watching a riproring western and a
Betty Boop cartoon than a pint before catching the bus home.” |
Nevertheless the new Queen’s Head went the way of many pubs while cinemas
bowed to bingo. It was de-licensed in 1995 and tried as a restaurant a
couple of times but it never took off.
“Betty Boop fits well in Tunstall,” concludes Jayne. “Bright colours and a
cheeky fun theme is what people want in these depressing times.”
And so say all of us Jayne.
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Note: the following letter which appeared in the Sentinel newspaper, 29
April 2009:
"HAVING an interest in local history I find Fred Hughes' column a very
enjoyable read. The contributions of local historians add a factual
flavour to Fred's easygoing style and delivery of his weekly journeys into
the past.
His article about the former Tunstall pub, the Queen's Head (Sentinel,
April 13) held a particular interest for me in that I lived for 20 years
almost next door to the pub, now converted to Betty's Diner.
It was with some amazement then I read the comments of historian Don
Henshall and realised his facts were incorrect.
I was born at 1 Hunt Street, a cottage annexed to the Swan Hotel. I lived
there until 1960 when the whole of the north side of Hunt Street was
demolished to accommodate the proposals for the Scotia Road Improvement.
One of my boyhood friends at the time was Tony Chidlow who lived at the
Queen's Head with his parents and grandmother, Gertrude Hopwood, who
became the licensee on the death of her husband in 1936. Tony lived at the
pub from 1944 until 1956 and now, coincidentally, is my neighbour.
Both Tony and myself can state without question that the building now
known as Betty's Diner is the self-same structure that certainly between
1940 and 1960 was the Queen's Head Public House. Don Henshall is wrong
when he states the pub was rebuilt in 1960 across the entrance of Hunt
Street where it joined the High Street.
Obviously over the years there have been some alterations to the fabric of
the building but Tony can still identify all the rooms, windows and doors
to the pub and the upstairs living accommodation.
The rear fire escape to the flat roof is still there and both of us can
still recognise the relationship of the pub and the old Ritz Cinema
building lines as we remembered them in the 1940s and '50s.
Don supplies a nostalgia photograph with the article showing the two pubs
on either side of Hunt Street (circa 1920, I would guess). Certainly the
Queen's Head has been rebuilt since the time of the photograph, but it
must have been before 1940 and on the site of the old pub, rather than
1960 and further north as Fred's article would have us believe."
ALAN DERRETT, Bradeley |
