Sad times for city centre

I remember my first visits to this grand establishment. It entailed entering by double red doors, facing opposite The Old 29 boozer, now painted shut, on wooden floorboards that were formed as a path through the red and white tiled linoleum on the rest of the floor, gazing at the old wooden bar with original hand pumps (not in use unfortunately) and the parrot on the other end of the bar.

This Edwardian boozer was built on an earlier pub called The Peacock so there has been a drinking establishment on this spot for quite a few hundred years. Sadly, no more and we are now left with less than a dozen town centre bars that are over 40 years old. These are The Borough, Dun Cow, Greens, The Albion (Chaplin’s), Ivy House, Burton House, Beehive (Bion’s), The Central (The Tipsy Cow), Sunderland’s oldest town centre pub, The Black Bull (Vesta Tilley’s), The Blandford and The Park (Legacy).

Forgive me if I have missed your favourite boozer out but these are sad days for Sunderland folk.

Alan ‘The Quill’ Vincent