Home > Staffordshire > Wolverhampton > WV6 > Golden Eagle Golden Eagle
Date of photo: 2005	Picture source: Dennis Harper
The Golden Eagle was situated at 80 Horden Road.
In 2000 my wife and I made a sentimental journey through England as to revisit places which had meant so much to us decades ago and still do in 2020. The journey took us first to the south of the country to the Stanbridge Earls School, a formerly excellent and highly regarded boarding school with a focus on art, drama and music two miles north of Romsey and high above the Test Valley. Initially my wife was there as an au pair, but soon after discovering her various skills she "rose" to become the maid of all work. The days in the year 2000 with the then long retired headmaster and his wife were a real highlight and with decades-old port of a top class vintage we wallowed in old memories. Thereafter we headed for Wolverhampton in the West and Nottingham in the East Midlands. And first of course we visited "my" school, the Regis School in Tettenhall, Wolverhampton where I took my first steps as a German teacher in 1970 and 1971. At that time the Regis School was well known far beyond the borders and was run by Sir Godfrey Cretney, the country's first and only ennobled headmaster. Later we had a stopover at the Golden Eagle at 80 Hordern Road a few minutes walk from Tettenhall Road. It was with great pleasure that I spent many a Saturday evening in this charming neo-Georgian pub 50 years ago. However, my visit 30 years later was disappointing, the pub lacked the atmosphere that had made it so special. During my time in Wolverhampton a three-man band (piano, drums and guitar) played there every Saturday, made groovy music and many of the locals felt compelled to climb onto the raised podium and sing. To the delight of the audience most of them were really talented. I remember two of the locals, Bob and Erich particularly well. Bob with his broad Midlands accent always came up to me immediately and wanted to sell tickets for an internal lottery. Bob made me believe that for two bob (excuse the pun) you could easily win a bottle of whisky. I never had such luck. The other one was Erich, called himself Erics, had a good position at the Wulfrun College, was much older than me and as a German-speaking Balt he appreciated me as a conversation partner. Unfortunately I never dared to ask more precisely why he became stranded in England. It was only clear that he had come to Britain after the Second World War. Had he possibly fought on the German side during the war like so many Latvians? Was he a stateless person, a DP who like so many others had wisely left Latvia after the withdrawel of the German army and the conquest of the Russians in June 1944? It's a pity I never asked, he would certainly have liked to tell me. The three-man band at the Golden Eagle with its large and lively repertoire became smaller in 1971. Only the pianist who always appeared in a black dinner jacket and bow tie remained, but he alone made just as great music, however no longer on the piano but on a Hammond organ. After the landlord had called out last orders shortly before half past ten Erics suggested every now and then a drive to the nearby county of Shropshire where last orders were half an hour later and so one could drink another beer. When I went back to my digs in Tettenhall Road, I would turn on the TV and very often there would be a late night show with Tom Jones. He too used to wear a black dinner jacket and when he sang his last song he would open his bow tie with a big swing. I should have suggested such a theatrical ending to the Hammond organ player at the Golden Eagle. Another missed opportunity. And while I was watching the show on televison, I had a cup of cocoa and a piece of cherry cake. You could always buy it on Saturdays at Woolworth in the 1968 opened Mander Shopping Centre on Dudley Street. There you could have a piece of a very large cake cut off in the desired size. A delicious titbit! Fifty years later I think that this was quite a daring combination: after the beer at the Golden Eagle some cocoa and cherry cake. Not everyone's cup of tea and that's definitely not in everybodys line! Unfortunately I have no information when and how the Golden Eagle went downhill so that it finally had to close. In August 2010 under the headline "Old pub reopens as a mosque" you could read in Wolverhampton's local evening paper Express & Star that in this once merry and boozy house where the beer flowed out of the taps in gallons, people now only pray. However, on the photo below the newspaper headline you could see that at least the inn sign was still on the house. The magnificent eagle with its widespread wings still seems to look at folk with a friendly invite even today. The date 1928 under the eagle certainly suggests the age of this pub, so more than 80 years. At The Newbridge, this impressive large half-timbered house quite close on Tettenhall Road I had a small beer every now and then. It has survived the widespread death of public houses to this day - the not far away Halfway House unfortunately hasn't. Which I deeply regret as you can read on another page. After several more side trips and riviving old memories, we went to Nottingham to meet my former superior and colleague, the head of the language department at the Regis School. I owe a lot to his highly gifted, inspired and dedicated teacher with his enormous broad knowledge. I learned a lot from him and was even allowed to teach the school's two most talented sixformers who both hoped to get a place at Oxford or Cambridge. So I did translation exercises with texts by Thomas Mann or read and discussed Die Physiker by Dürrenmatt with them. I mention this so that readers don't think that the Golden Eagle or the Halfway House had a very high rank for me. Not at all, but they both belonged to my time in Wolverhampton and there I learned something of the British way of life, too. A school of life I would not want to have missed.
Helio Stinka (November 2020)
Do you have any anecdotes, historical information, updates or photos of this pub? Become a contributor by submitting them here. Like this site? Follow us on Make email contact with other ex-customers and landlords of this pub by adding your details to this page.