Despite its name –
and the impression that might have been given by its previous
signboard (see below) – this has always been a pub and has no
association with the once-famous Lyons
Corner Houses of London. It is so named simply because it is on a
street corner. The present building stands on the site of a pub
called the Butchers Arms, dating from around 1869, which was rebuilt
and renamed sometime in the 1920s.
Although completely
unrelated (close inspection reveals that it’s not even a corner
house, just a Lyons tea shop), the image on the previous sign had
some charm.
Then in late 2014 it
fell foul of Greene
King’s widespread ‘brand refresh’ and was replaced with
this:
It didn’t take my
Camra colleagues long to find the source: Gill’s
Corner House, Dublin 356, by Irish artist Chris Mc Morrow. Yes,
another ‘lifted from the Internet’ special from Bury St Edmund’s
finest. Now it’s not
unknown for pubs to have a
picture of themselves on the signboard – but to have a picture
of a completely different pub in a different country is a little odd,
I’d say. Maybe they were hoping no one would recognise it. Ha!
Anyway. Note how the Guinness branding in the original has been
blacked out in the sign: well, we can’t be seen to acknowledge the existence of
any other breweries, can we, Greene King?
I’m sure all the
appropriate formalities surrounding boring stuff like permission and
copyright and fees and consent for the marring of original artwork
were meticulously observed...
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