The Crooked House: Subsidence and Scandal
You may have heard of the Crooked House as it featured quite heavily in the news last year when it was destroyed by an arson fire which ultimately led to it being suspiciously demolished. The events around the fire and subsequent raising of The Crooked House have led to several arrests and an order from South Staffordshire Council to rebuild the pub exactly as it was before the demolition. The saga continues, but how did The Crooked House become ‘Britain’s Wonkiest Pub’?
The building, originally a corn mill called Coppice Mill, was constructed in 1765 in Himley, South Staffordshire. At some point during the 1840’s the mill began to sink into the earth. In a guest blog on the website of the Black Country Society, Steve Roughton, a Chartered Civil and Structural Engineer with over 30 years experience, suggests that the subsidence has been incorrectly attributed to the Himley Colliery mining activity around the area. Using flood maps of the time (1840 – 1870), Steve speculates that the mining of the ‘thick coal’, a seem of coal ten metres thick at a depth of over 100 metres, caused extensive subsidence in the area as evidenced by the increase in the flooded areas around the mill. This would have caused the mill to tilt into the mining area, however, this tilt may well have been exacerbated by the weight of mill wheel and the movement of the water beneath, causing the softening of the ground below. Steve goes on to tell us that the mill was operational in 1851, but by 1852 it had become the Glynne Arms. Steve suggests that the subsidence beneath the wheel may have eventually prevented it from turning at all, and resulted in the change of use of the building from a mill to a pub.
Known parochially as “Siden House” meaning “Crooked House”, the pub was strengthened with buttresses in 1904, but was eventually condemned for being unsafe in the 1940’s and scheduled for demolition. The pub was subsequently saved in 1957 when Wolverhampton and Dudley Breweries purchased the pub and, once again, strengthened the building with further buttressing and tie bars. This cost the brewery around £10,000 at the time, approximately £302,000 in today’s money.
To see how The Crooked House looked in 1974, follow this link to a charming BBC news archive from the time:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-birmingham-66427216
In 1986, the building was damaged by fire which resulted in more expenditure for the brewery of around £360,000. This would be worth more than £1M today. It once again survived this disaster and, in 2002, was officially renamed the Crooked House which remained its name until its eventual demise in 2023.
Following an arson fire on 5th August 2023, Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service and Staffordshire Police launched an investigation to determin the cause of the fire. Parts of the building were also agreed to be removed so as to make it structurally safe, however, council officers did not deem it necessary to demolish the whole building. When police officers stood down from their investigation on the morning of 7 August 2023 due to concerns over structural integrity, they left a police cordon in place and the site in the charge of the landowner. Later that day, an excavator demolished the whole structure.
On the back of the demolition, the campaign group "Save the Crooked House (Let's Get It Re-Built)" formed with a view to salvaging the original brickwork and other artefacts from the pub, and getting it rebuilt exactly as it was. This includes rescuing stolen bricks from auction sites, as well as attempts to relocate the iconic grandfather clock that can be seen in the BBC archive footage. The campaigners believe this was removed before the fire was started, however, sadly the grandfather clock has not yet been recovered.
In February 2024 South Staffordshire Council ordered ATE Farms Ltd to rebuild the pub brick by brick, using photographs to ensure a faithful reconstruction. ATE Farms Ltd have appealed this order proposing to build it on an alternative site, and further hearings are due for spring 2025.
The story of the Crooked House looks far from over, but how could structural monitoring have helped?
Of course, structural monitoring didn’t really exist in the 1840’s, however, it seems clear that the mill started sinking during the 1840’s whilst the ‘thick coal’ beneath was being mined. Over this period of movement, the building sank to an eventual depth of 1.2 metres lower at the wheel end of the building than at the other, eventually causing the building to lean at an angle of 15 degrees. And here is how structural monitoring could have helped:
First, our tilt monitoring devices have a resolution of 0.03 degrees, with an ultimate range of +/- 30 degrees. If these had been installed on the mill, we would have detected the tilting of subsidence very quickly (automatically taking readings every eight hours) and the buttresses could have been added much sooner, thus potentially saving the mill.
Second, we could have supported the findings of the tilt monitors using our automated crack monitors. These would have shown to a precision of 0.01mm, that the building was starting to separate in places, further demonstrating the need to shore up the construction and save the mill.
Finally, our traditional monitoring (otherwise known as target monitoring or total station monitoring) would have shown in three dimensions, to an accuracy of +/- 1mm, exactly how the building was moving. This would have allowed the structural engineers of the time to remedy the issues and save the corn mill.
These monitors would have given precise data and early warnings that the mill was moving, thereby saving the business and, eventually, Wolverhampton and Dudley Breweries over £1.3M in today’s money.
The cost to benefit ratio of using structural monitoring would seem abundantly clear, however, on this occasion, we are pleased to have been founded in 2010, a mere 170 years after the fact. In an alternate timeline, Moniteye would have helped to save the mill and thus deprived the country of one of it’s most unique pubs and one of the best examples of subsidence we have come across.
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crooked_House
https://www.blackcountrysociety.com/post/what-really-caused-the-crooked-house-to-tilt
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-birmingham-66427216
