Thank for this video. We locals get quite annoyed when certain RU-vidrs refer to Wealdstone as "Wealdst'n". I keep telling them "there IS an actual stone - it's not a contraction of the word town. 😄
Hi Tweedy. Whilst you did go slightly “off piste” you still provided us with an eminently interesting video. I was brought up in Middlesex and had no idea that the Weald Stone actually existed. Middlesex contains numerous “villages” within the suburban sprawl. In the 1970’s and early 80’s these contained some fabulous pubs. My fear is that these have largely disappeared and now live only in my distant memories. “The Case is Altered” looks like a prime and sad example. ☹️😔😢
i lived in Harrow Weald in the 90's and worked in Wealdstone in the 60's. Harrow and Wealdstone station was the scene of the worst railway disaster in Britain in 1952, The Who and Rod Stewart played the Railway Hotel in the 60s, the Hare was a delightful country pub until it became an American burger restaurant, the Case is Altered was a wonderful country pub with a huge garden area, sad to see it closed, there is another Case is Altered pub in Wealdstone high street, Gilbert (of Gilbert and Sullivan ) owned the large Grimsdyke Hotel, he had a swimming pool which he let local children use, he died from drowning trying to rescue one of them who got into difficulties. Great video thanks for my trip down memory lane!
I used to be a roofer in Watford years ago and was up on the roof of an outbuilding at the case is altered when the landlady opened her curtains without getting dressed first!!!!!!
I once read that a popular hobby in Victorian times was chimney pot spotting. Being so reliant on coal, there would have been a wide variety of chimney pots manufactured. Some would have been merely decorative, others may have been designed to extract the fumes more effectively.
I think linking pubs to an interesting location to visit is a great idea for videos. Its useful to understand a bit about an area and some local history when visiting a place......and then have a few pints in some nice pubs!!
Thank you! In this case the history of the stone (and therefore the area) was very intertwined with the pub - so much so it had been part of the foundations for a time!
The stones are actually remnants of a cap of silcrete that covered much of southern England prior to glaciation and are widely scattered from Wiltshire to Kent. Early inhabitants gathered them to use for everything from tombs , boundary markers to monuments , some left where they lay as they were too bothersome to shift .The word Sarsen is probably corrupted from Saracen meaning anything foreign to the location as the stones looked nothing like what was surrounding them having been moved by glaciers. Alternatively their bothersome nature could have given them the Anglo Saxon name : sar stan " ( trouble stone ).
*New Subscriber* That was fantastic . Very well researched, shot, and edited. You're a natural presenter to camera, so I've no doubt you'll be at 50k subs in no time. Living now in Czech Republic, I used to work in Harrow but never made it to that area in today's video. It's a shame that the Weald Stone lies unloved in a pavement. I hope the locals continue to give their local pubs good patronage as they'll miss them if they go. For the best beer, I encourage you to visit Czech Republic on your travels. Plzen ( an hour by train from Prague ) is, as you no doubt know, the home of pilsner, "bottom fermented" beer. The brewery there has a fine tour, and a great pub. Almost every small hamlet has a chateau or castle close by, with usually an olde worlde pub either inside the grounds, or close by. Glad I've come across your channel. Love the herringbone suit ! All the best from Prague. CZ
A fantastic video. I’m obsessed with antiquities surviving in urban sprawl so this was right up my street! I had no idea the stone in Wealdstone was still there. And such a wonderfully mundane setting. Fabulous! Many years ago I actually filmed a video in the Grim’s Dyke Hotel. It has long been deleted and most certainly would get me cancelled nowadays. Mine was about the use of the hotel in the filming of Evil of the Daleks, which was filmed in 1967. A young chap working there got involved and let me up onto the balcony overlooking that banqueting hall - enabling me to capture a shot as per the Doctor Who story. It is a magnificent building and I’m so glad to see that it’s still there. Tragic situation with the Case is Altered - looks like it might have been the best of the bunch. The cause of the closure is emblematic of what’s wrong with our local councils nowadays. Absolutely clueless. This was a really interesting diversion from the normal format on the channel and it looked like you had a lot of fun making it!
Thanks Mr WC21! Yes I completely agree on the fascination with antiquities "hidden" in urban sprawl like this. I had a lot of quizzical looks from passers by as I was filming here, suggesting most of them presumably had no idea of the stone's significance. An interesting coincidence there that we have both filmed in the Grim's Dyke Hotel! It is a fantastic find, and I think I'm developing a bit of an obsession with chimneypieces! I was berated by Mr Allotment Fox in the comments here for not investigating the actual ditch while I was there (and he was quite right to do so!), but alas I ran out of time. I also wasn't quite sure how I'd explain that bit away in a video on a channel which is meant to be about pubs! I had already stretched the point a bit using up several precious minutes of the audience's attention span talking about sarsen stones in front of pubs, but an old earthwork behind a hotel really felt like a ditch too far! I agree, The Case is Altered would almost certainly have been the star of the show had it still been open! I did a bit of reading around and apparently the council blamed anti-social behaviour in the car park. I suspect given the timing that might have actually been a short term problem. I'm sure a solution could have been found. I wasn't really sure when I set out to make this video whether it was going to be a Tweedy Pubs or a Tweedy Outdoors video - it sort of sits half way between the two. So it's good to hear that most people didn't mind the slight deviation from the usual subject matter.
@@TweedyPubs A Tramp in the Hills just did an interesting video where he checked out 30 pubs from a 25 year old pubs walk book. 25 were still trading, which I thought wasn’t bad, all things considered. One of the five that had been closed had been demolished, the others converted to residential. I wonder what fate awaits the Case is Altered as a building. That’s the other tragedy about losing pubs, sometimes closure seems to provide an excuse for demolition. It’s all when and good the government talking about building all these houses, but we really mustn’t overlook the huge number of empty historic buildings that desperately need to be given a new life. That’s my rant over for a Sunday morning!
Regarding The Case is Altered, legend has it that the car park was notorious for hosting various 'activities'. Think digging but using a different vowel. I believe also that the reason Wetherspoons flourished in North West London in its early days was because that part of London had become a literal real ale desert.
Fantastic video loved the off the beaten track content, very sad about the "Case is altered" looked like a great place. Been away on holiday so catching up on the last few weeks is a joy, I quite like a Doom Bar...
Up in the Pennines, the millstones can be found lying around everywhere, used for sharpening knives. I often wonder if the ancient stones were used for a similar purpose to sharpen bronze and iron age swords.
Excellent thanks 🍺it was a shame the 2nd to last pub was closed as it looked interesting 🧐 but the Gilbert old house hotel looked nice 👌 and funny because I have been listening too Gilbert and Sullivan this week 😂😂have a great weekend 👏👏
Hi John, Excellent, very enjoyable!! I liked the way the stone is just there and you can touch it or even stand on it, maybe a favourite for the dogs too? Golly, no wonder visitors are welcomed in the Grims Ditch, £7.65 for a pint of Guinness, mind you I think you got your money's worth with that chimney place. Great shame the Case Altered had to close due to the car park, it looked the best of all of them. Interesting its possible connections to the Peninsular war. As an aside, just a short distance down the motorway from us at Illora, you will find the mansion given to the Duke of Wellington by the Spanish state following his help in the war, which is still in the family to this day (er .... his family not mine) All the best!!
Lived in the area for years and driven past the Weald Stone and bankrupted myself feeding the family at the Hare now and then, without ever noticing the stones - thank you. The Case Is Altered was a great summer pub in the 80s and 90s. Shame to see it go but it only works with a good car park…..which back then was more notable for weekend “boy racer” car spotting (like my Sunbeam Lotus) than more athletic “in car entertainment”.
What a wonderful, informative and charming vid. Thank you Mr Tweedy for your hard work creating these vids. The weald stone looks more like an erratic nobody could be bothered to cart away, but I prefer your more informed version of such.
Glad to find your channel...I wasn't so happy when I first knew of the stone. I actually tripped over it on a snowy icy day 15 years ago.. As you say it has been moved slightly since then!
Very interesting stuff, TP. Still amazed at the level of research involved - can't imagine how you find time to dig it all out. Great shame about the Case is Altered pub, which looks like a nice pub building. As you say, Gilbert's home very impressive all round. Great suit, by the way. Thanks once again. Tom (from France - supposed to be working, but in fact watching you on RU-vid).
Thanks Tom! I am currently taking a career break - or something like that - so I'm in the fortunate position of having lots of free time to make these videos. This one involved a day or two's research, but I ended up leaving some bits out of the video because it strayed a bit too far off the main theme (I had dug into the history of the Smith family who owned the Red Lion in the 1800s, and also looked at the history of nearby Wealdstone House a bit). Yes I agree, a great shame about the Case is Altered! The suit is from a company called Walker Slater, where most of my tweed suits come from. It's not really appropriate for wearing in the city of course, but on those old maps at least this area looked lke it was in the countryside!
Good afternoon, Tweedy I have read several articles about Grim's Dyke over the years. I did not realise you could walk into the hotel now and grab a beer. It is an interesting Norman Shaw building and looks worth a visit. I'm glad you managed to find a pint of Landlord 😁👍
Thanks Lee - I wish I had explored the actual dyke/ditch at Grim's Dyke Hotel while I was there, but I ran out of time. I think most hotel bars in the UK are open to non-residents aren't they? Certainly at bigger hotels at least. Of course prices are typically higher than a pub, and they're less likely to serve any real ales, but i looked at the price of that pint as an admission fee to a museum and gardens and on that basis it seemed well worth it.
Thank you! That was very interesting. It may be 'off piste' but it's none the worse for that. I live a few miles west of Harrow and I have always wondered where Wealdstone got its name.
Lived in Harrow for 30 years, and for 3 years I lived on the road that leads up to the Weald Stone. I went to the Weald Stone Inn once, just before it closed (2005/6) and it was okay, then it was derelict for 10 years before becoming a fantastic Indian restaurant. The Case is Altered was a good pub, in all the time I lived in Harrow, it closed and re-opened about 5 times (at least twice it became an Indian restaurant, something of a theme in Harrow). The Car Park was pretty dodgy at night, which is why the council have to close it early. There are some great walks that you can do around there though, and it was always nicer when you had a pub to pop into mid-walk. Hopefully, it will open again in the future. The Hare is a great gastropub, but it suffers from the same issue that the Case is Altered had, it's not really near anywhere so you have to rely on one bus or be prepared for a long walk. So it has had to turn into a restaurant to attract customers who are prepared to drive there and spend a lot. Never knew that the Hare had sarsen stones out front though, that was very cool to learn.
£7.65 a pint?? What is the world coming to? I'm of an age when I can remember the outcry when a pint moved above the £1 threshold. Thankfully I can still enjoy a Guinness at my local for £3.40.
Ditches were the sewers as well as the drains. Everything, including industrial waste from fulling, abattoirs, tanneries etc that couldn't go directly into a river went into a ditch. A report to the inspector of nuisances mean't somebody wasn't flushing or unblocking theirs :D
Thank you! I think I may have actually got that fact slightly wrong - William Gilbert definitely lived there, but I think it had another owner immediately prior to him. Either way he's certainly the house's most famous resident!
sad to see the Case closed, Casa Alta in Spain would be an inn on a high point, there used to be another pub in Wealdstone with the same name and flamenco dancers on their pub sign.
I much enjoyed this. History is much more important than we think. History gives us guidance. Not only about who we are but also about who we are supposed to be. As always - keep up your excellent work. I'm glad to see the number of subscribers is ticking up.
Tweedy - thanks for going off piste! This was a very enjoyable video - you took us to WS Gilbert's home with terrific archtitecture - well worth the diversion!
Bombay Central was excellent until the flood closed it. Themed with trains running around the bar and excellent East African Asian food. The Grims (Ditch) Dyke is an ancient earth works. In the woods by the case is altered is a tower used as a repeater for micro wave transmission, linking the Post Office (BT) tower to the tower in Birmingham. Of course that technology has been superseded. Across the woods is Bentley Priory used in WW2 as RAF fighter command, where the Battle of Britain was directed.
Another enjoyable video! Thanks! You mention in your video that the "heritage tomato salad" is not exactly a ploughman's lunch. Where can you even get a ploughman's lunch these days? It's been a long time since I've seen it on any pub menu . . . which is very sad.
Well, I guess you found one! And did a whole video! Wow! Thanks! I was actually in the Queen’s Larder pub in March, but it was in the evening and after dinner, so I don’t think we even looked at the food menu.
Yes that was a definite oversight! I had originally intended to go for a walk around the wider hotel grounds to see if there was anything to see of Grim's Ditch but I ran out of time. I wasn't sure what I'd have said about it even if I had got there though!
A very different video this one, talking of pub stone, but this time no mention of Norwegian marble. I thought this Weald Stone, may have been prehistoric, and marked the place of the very first pub in Britain, maybe it was called The Mammoth? Maybe the stone was called the Mammoth Steppe, like the one in Siberia.
Casa Alta may be a reference to the siege of Badajoz during the Peninsular War. After the siege the British troops got drunk on substantial amounts of alcohol found in the city.
Tweedy I know I harassed u over Wimbledon which was brilliant by the way!! Could u consider Amersham old town. Great cluster of old skool pubs that u would do justice sir!
Pleased to see my local area featured. Not many decent pubs around there, save one or two exceptions. Harrow On The Hill has more history to look at and pubs to visit. Would be happy to show you about. Cheers #Disco
I wonder how many folk from Wealdstone have tripped over the Weald Stone in their drunken state without realising the object of their downfall gave the name to where they reside 😂
While I was standing there taking footage of the pub a young woman came up and asked me why I was doing that. I could have been wrong but I got the sense she was quite drunk. It was just gone midday.
Very kind of you to say so! This video was just a topic which piqued my interest rather than a deliberate attempt to "go viral". I'm sure the algorithm will treat this with the same disdain it has shown to my last couple of videos!
