We visited a Wolverhampton pub which once laid dormant and derelict - but is now vibrant and carries memories for many of the regulars
It's a pub which looked lost to history after having sat closed, dormant and derelict for years, but has since been taken over and given a new lease of life as a pub and cafe with community spirit running right through it.
When pubs close down, they can become spectres of the past, sitting there as an empty shell and leaving behind nothing but memories of better times and nothing to look forward to but a slow decay.
There are plenty of pubs which had a heyday full of flowing beer, bars and lounges echoing with chatter and laughter and a feeling of being at the heart of their communities, but fell on hard times and were forced to close down.
One pub which went through this process was the Fox & Goose in Penn in Wolverhampton, which had once been a popular pub, but closed in 2007 and despite gaining a new life as the Carriba, a Caribbean restaurant and cocktail lounge, it closed during the Covid-19 pandemic.
That seemed to be it for the Fox & Goose, with more than 200 years of history, but only a future as a rotting shell, until locals Liz and Steve Evans took over the building in 2024 and worked to convert it into the modern day hybrid bar and cafe which, since opening at the start of August, has become a very popular place to drink.
Joe Keay is one of the co-owners, as well as landlord of the pub, and said that while he was too young to remember it as a pub, he'd been told a lot about its history within Wolverhampton.
He said: "I knew it as the Caribbean restaurant as I'm a bit too young to have been in the pub when it was that, but my parents and people I know who are older talk about it and have a lot of fond memories of it, saying that they met significant others here or came here all the time with their mates.
