It’s 15 December 2022, and you know what that means, don’t you? Yes, that’s right! It’s the 52nd anniversary of the official opening of the maddest pub the world ever saw, the Windsock in Dunstable.
It closed 13 years later because IN A SURPRISE TO EVERYONE it proved impractical to run, but still, as architectural critic Ian Nairn said, “the designer has had quite considerable fun”.
Thanks to The Nostalgist, you can now read a full history of this outlandish place — including how its architect, Roy Wilson Smith, was also responsible for The Pheasant in Harlington and The Crumpled Horn, Swindon.
That link to Nairn Across Britain is worth a click, by the way, to see someone enthusing about buildings and canals and landscape — and for this end title:
And if you have time, read all four instalments of Geoff’s history of the Windsock to glimpse into a forgotten era of small towns in the 1970s.
