The Greyhound and Punchbowl Inn, formerly Stow Heath Manor House and then Ye Olde Greyhound, or also 51 High Street, is a public house in Bilston, West Midlands, England. It was formerly a manor house before it was licensed around 1810.

The current building consists of the western wing of Stow Heath Manor House, which was used as a manor house between 1450 and 1715 and then as a public house between and 2023.

History

Adjacent to the heath of Stow located in Bilston, the construction of Stow Heath Manor House began likely in 1438 after John de Mollesley of Bushbury married the daughter and sole heiress of Edwin de Bilston during the same year. The building was probably completed during the early 1440s, and the earliest surviving section of the building dates to 1450, with John de Mollesley and his wife being the earliest known incumbents in . The local court leet was also held in the upper rooms around this time.

Royal Commissioners stayed at the manor in 1508 under Henry VII to enquire about St. Leonard's Church, and Commissioners of Henry VIII came to Bilston in 1538 to enquire into the state of St. Leonard's Church during the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536–1541); both sets of commissioners stayed at the manor house.Basil Oliver, The Renaissance of the English Public House, Faber and Faber, 1947, pp.144-146 The house was sold during the English Civil War to John Green, whose son died during the Battle of Worcester (3 September 1651), and by this time it was also called Stoke Heath Manor House.

It is traditionally believed that during the 17th century, either Charles I or Charles II visited the manor house.

The manor house was owned by the Green family until 1715, when it was abandoned. Over several decades, water ingress severely compromised the structural integrity of the roof trusses. This lack of maintenance eventually resulted in the catastrophic collapse of both the central connecting hall and the eastern kitchen wing. When new owners acquired the site no later than 1757, the collapsed remnants of the center and east blocks were systematically cleared away, leaving only the shored-up western residential wing standing as a standalone structure.Messrs. W. Butler & Co. Limited (1936) - The Greyhound and Punch-bowl, Bilston. p.4

John Garbet was the earliest known licensed victualler of the public house, owning the property during the 1750s, and he organised a cockfighting tournament to take place there on 27 June 1757, and coins dating from the reigns of George III and Louis XVI of France suggesting the property was still in use as an inn between 1774 and 1793; this timeline is further solidified by records showing Jonathan Hartshorn held the license from at least 17 April 1791 to 1801. The venue was not officially licensed as Ye Olde Greyhound until around 1810 (the licensed victualler at this time is unknown), and during this time, it was believed the building only dated to the 18th or 19th century.

It eventually fell into disrepair again, until it was purchased in January 1935 by Messrs. W. Butler & Co. Limited and was restored by James A. Swan in 1936 and renamed to The Greyhound and Punchbowl Inn. Before it was restored by Swan, the building was under licence to Joseph Wheeler and showed serious signs of disrepair. On 20 June 1952 Historic England designated The Greyhound and Punchbowl as a Grade II* listed building.Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Staffordshire, (1974), 71 It was last refurbished in 2003 by Avebury Taverns, and the building was placed on the Heritage at Risk Register around 2008. The building is now suffering from complex structural problems to the supporting concrete frame due to poor management conditions towards the building. It is slowly decaying, with currently no management solution agreed.

On 30 September 2023, at roughly 03:40 BST, the building was damaged in an arson attack, and the flames were put out by 05:20 BST; the building received smoke damage and nobody was injured. Between 3–4 October 2023, the building was likely burgled, and it is still closed in 2026 despite ongoing renovations by George Kang.

Description Much of the extant building dates the manor house to the mid 16th century, although all that remains of the original 15th-century building is the west wing and a tree in the middle of the building that was probably felled on site or nearby, also during the 15th century. The rear room has a well-preserved 16th-century carved overmantel, although it is probably not in situ anymore and has been moved from its original location. Lawley (1893) and Mills & Williams (1988) said the manor house "would have been divided into three blocks: the west wing containing the principal living room, the east wing the kitchen area and a hall which connected the two".George W. Lawley, A History of Bilston, John Price, Bilston, 1893Mary Mills and Tracey Williams, Bilston, Tettenhall and Wednesfield, Tempus Publishing, 1998

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