438
Woodbridge Road, Ipswich. The public house on the corner of Woodbridge
Road and Cauldwell Hall Road was been the subject of
closure proposals by the owners Greene King and a petition and
demonstration against it. In 2013 the pub closed, to be demolished or
converted to make
way for a supermarket. See The Emperor
for a similar and contemporaneous story. The Golden Key is a
building with little apparent promise for historic
lettering, but the windows are of some interest.
2012 imagesLate 2013
image
On the
corner window some deco-style leaded lights
embody lettering in marbled, opaque blue glass which recalls
pre-smoking ban fug-filled bars:
'SMOKE
ROOM'
The
equivalent widow is at the rear of the pub:
'SALOON
BAR'
Unusually for stained
glass, these signs are designed to be read from outside the building.
As so often
for local public house information the
Suffolk CAMRA website (see Links) tells us that the earliest listing of
this pub is 1855, as The Key Inn. The Golden Key is a reference to St
Peter: "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven"
(Mathew 16:18) and this source is reflected in the pub sign image.
[UPDATE: September 2013. Sadly,
this public house and two other locals (The
Emperor and The Heathlands) are all being converted into
supermarkets. This has resulted in the loss of the lettered deco
windows, so they join the 'These we have
lost' section.]
2012 images
Late 2013
image 
