Greyhound & Punchbowl, Bilston

A fine timber-framed house from the mid/late fifteenth century and certainly in pub use for a couple of centuries. It was restored in 1936 by Wolverhampton brewers W Butler & Co, under the architect James A Swan of Birmingham. He was careful to keep all the sound old woodwork and his care was such that it's hard to distinguish the new work from the old in many cases. He also kept the ornamented seventeenth-century plaster ceiling (front left) and the Tudor/Jacobean carved woodwork over the left-hand fireplaces. Swan placed his public bar at the front (right) with a smoking room (front left) and a 'parlour' behind. There has since been a great deal of reordering (possibly in the 1960s) and the partitions between the two latter rooms and the corridor have been removed and the servery (from 1936 adjacent to the corridor) moved to the rear of the public bar. Much of Swan's panelling and seating survive.

The public bar has a 1930s brick and Tudor shaped stone fireplace and fielded panelling above. Note the plasterwork rose symbols on the ceiling. As well as the impressive four-sectioned ceiling in the front left room, there is 1930s fielded panelling on the walls, a brick and Tudor shaped stone fireplace and 1930s fixed seating. Both left hand rooms have wide openings on to the passage where there is a modern bar counter. In the rear right formerly a living room is a 1930s brick fireplace and a wood block floor. The gents (formerly outside but now linked) retains 4 big 1930s urinals.

A page on the website 'Wolverhampton's Listed Buildings" has details of The 1936 Restoration.