LED ZEPPELIN's Stairway To Rock's Heaven Is Now A Ruin

October 18, 2004

Neil Elkes of Evening Mail reports: The Queen's Head may now be a burnt-out shell of a pub, but it rocked to the cream of Birmingham's music industry during the Sixties and Seventies.

LED ZEPPELIN's Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Bonham, SLADE, THE MOVE, Ozzy Osbourne and BLACK SABBATH all cut their teeth at Erdington's premier rock'n'roll venue.

But whereas the pub was once at the epicentre of Birmingham's youth culture, in recent years it has become a blight on the community, home only to squatters, vandals, fly-tippers and travellers.

And the bulldozers could soon move in after Birmingham Labour MP Sion Simon added his voice to calls from residents for the eyesore to be torn down.

Two years ago the site was almost sold to supermarket chain Lidl, but planners decided it was an unsuitable site for a food store and the building has stayed derelict ever since.

"I was shocked at the state of it. It is soul destroying," said Les Cole who ran the nightclub from 1964 to 1978, working for the licensee Bob Thomas.

"I lived there for 14 years and now my old bedroom is burnt out." Read more.

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