Film director, actor and writer Alice Lowe has spoken of her resistance to plans to demolish the Market Tavern – formerly known as the Pelican – in Union Street, Stroud.
Alice’s family has deep roots in the Stroud district – her grandfather attended school with Laurie Lee and later worked at the Safari Caravan factory at Bowbridge.
“I feel really passionately about the Market Tavern. Not many people locally know that it’s endangered as a building now that there’s been proposals to demolish it. I’ve always wondered why such a beautiful building in such a sort of popular street, probably Stroud’s most popular street, could possibly be knocked down,” said Alice.
The Pelican was a Stroud social institution throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Subsequently the pub was named the Union Inn and latterly the Market Tavern until its closure in 2014, when it was sold to an investor by leisure property specialist, Fleurets, for in excess of the guide price, of £350,000.
Stroud Town Council have backed plans to demolish the much-loved landmark building. No formal planning application has been submitted, but the council’s Highways and Consultations committee approved the initial proposals, pinpointing the lack of significant architectural features in the existing building.
“I think about this Roald Dahl short story, which is about a man who saws the legs off a Chippendale because he doesn’t realise its worth. And I feel like we’re on the brink of sawing the legs off a Chippendale here. I don’t think people come to Stroud to see a brand-new retail unit, which is what they’re suggesting.
“I mean, there’s more than one sort of reason to kind of keep the pub and renovate it as it is. I think it could be a tourist centre, it could be a gallery, it could be a retail unit, it could be a gastro pub. I think the success of Juliet, which is right opposite, is proof that you can really, preserve history and preserve a building.
“You can preserve a building, preserve its history, whilst also incorporating progress and bringing money into the town, which at the end of the day is the sensible thing to do. It’s not just an airy-fairy desire to preserve history for the sake of it, in a sort of stick in the mud stubborn way. It’s also like, ‘let’s really see what assets we have in this town and what value there is and think about how to move forward with that with a bit of a bit of vision, and a bit of forethought, foresight.”
The Local Heritage Asset entry records the former pub as: ‘A late Georgian building, constructed after 1819. Originally the London Road frontage was part of a terrace of four houses extending towards Cornhill. The pub was renamed the Market Tavern in 2012. It had previously been the much loved Pelican Inn, and prior to that the Union Inn. It had the last “Men Only” bar in Stroud until the 1970s.’
