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Listing: The
New Inn is a large roadside public house occupying a prominent corner
position on the junction of Bilston Road and Ettingshall Road. It was
built in 1937 to designs by the architects A T and Bertram Butler of
Priory Street, Dudley to replace an earlier public house which was
demolished to make way for improvements to Ettingshall Road. It is built
of red brick with stone dressings under a slate roof of complex form
involving a mixture of hips, gables, parapets and traditional eaves.
There are single storey and full height canted bays of brick and stone.
Windows are metal casements with leaded glazing in stone surrounds, the
principal windows having also stone mullions and transomes. Internally,
it has a large bar and separate smaller smoke room, both served from a
centre bar servery, and a separate large function room with its own bar
servery. It is a prominent local landmark and a relatively rare example
of an inter‑war public house which survives, internally and externally,
in virtually its original form.
Comment: When built it would have been in an
area already full of factories and housing but it is on the main road
from Wolverhampton to Bilston and so might count as a version of a 1930s
road house. It stands on a complex junction and would have caught
trade from all directions.
In January 2006 it is closed for refurbishment.
As long as the interior maintains its original form this will be
all to the good.
Above the doors, and in the name stone (which is
in the canted bay window nearest Wolverhampton) the Banks's lion
logo appears, proclaiming the original (and current) owners.
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