Disused hotel fails to meet its Waterloo after new owner pledges rebirth

A DISUSED Birmingham pub, once a regular haunt of members of the city’s business community, is to undergo a rebirth, new owners have said.

The Waterloo Hotel, in Shireland Road, Cape Hill, a Grade II listed Edwardian hostelry realised more than three times its guide price when it sold at auction yesterday for £150,000.

Built as a flagship pub-hotel in 1908 for Mitchells & Butlers, whose brewery was nearby, and dominating a corner site, it boasted a lavish Baroque front and ornate interior.

“We fell in love with the character of the building,” said a spokesman for Zafar Rashid, who purchased the venue in association with partners.

“We want to preserve it and we are going to get professional advice on how best to do that. Our initial thoughts are that it becomes a bar/restaurant, perhaps with residential on the first and second floors.”

The hotel proved to be one of the star lots at the auction held at Aston Villa Football Club.

CPBigwood director Ian Tudor said: “It is something of a sad place these days – the vandals have been at work.

“For anyone who knew it in its heyday it is a great pity. Let’s hope it now gets the tender loving care it needs.”

The spokesman for Mr Rashid promised it would be refurbished.

“We would hope to have it back up and running within 12 months,” he said.

When it was still in operation, real ale campaigner CAMRA described the pub as follows: “The astonishing feature of the interior is the tile work. It covers the walls of the public bar – and even the ceiling. There are bands of green, blue, cream and salmon with highly decorative motifs and descending wreaths. The counter and bar back are excellent, original work.

“But the really spectacular room is the Grill Room in the basement. This is the restaurant and features walls and ceilings extravagantly tiled with a frieze of galleons. On one side is the original servery and on the other a cast-iron grill – this superb Edwardian survivor is still fired up and used to cook the grills. The pub also doubled as a commercial hotel and at the top of the stairs you will find a small cubicle that was used by a night-watchman.”

The Birmingham business community enjoyed many a ‘lost’ Friday afternoon on the premises, particularly in the 1980s when long lunches were still in vogue.

John James, once a lawyer with the then Edge & Ellison, now part of US giant Squire Sanders, recalls: “We used to go three or four times a year. The beer was excellent and the steaks were massive. It was terrific fun. Plenty of laughter. You would get a lot of the great and good of Birmingham in there.

“It was a case of writing the afternoon off … and probably half the weekend too!”

A fellow business executive recalled: “It was run by a red-haired feisty woman called Maggie.

“It had these beautiful tiles. There was like a coal-fired open pit where they did the food. You chose your steak and watched it being cooked.

“I can remember going into the place but very rarely coming out!”

The pub was on the site of a one-time off-licence called Waterloo Stores, which was owned by Titus Mason, of the famous Mason’s pop company.

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