The Woodman, Eastside Park

We had lunch at The Woodman today, an old pub with a rather chequered history, that has re-opened in the past year, since Eastside Park was opened. It is a seriously sexy building, one of Birmingham's classic terracotta-and-tile pubs. We sat in the posh bit, the former smoke room, where there is a bell push for service above each table. Push ours as I could, service didn't come to the table. The room has the original tiling & essentially original set-up & furniture. The tiling can feel slightly cold, but to a magical person that building is one hell of a history book. I mean, seriously, you have to see, although I feel she has a preference for gay men!

The other history lesson in that building, that I only realised after I'd been a couple of times, is that the room we sat in used to have a plaque in to commemorate the visits of Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper. He was a lorry driver in the 1970s & used to go the Woodman with other lorry drivers. Who knows, I could have been sitting where he used to sit!

Another strange thing was that the girls at the table next to us all left around half of their - not-excessively-large - meals. Judging by the talk of portions the Hound (over) heard, I would guess this was for reasons other than dissatisfaction with the food!

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