When a historic Yorkshire pub went up for lease, there was an iconic collection of Christmas decorations that couldn’t be handed over.
The Black Rock, Wakefield has remained a popular watering hole for workers in the city centre who would pile in every evening and fill the small pub, huddling over their beloved pints.
It was always quite a down-beat pub until its then landlord and custodians began acquiring a collection of decorations every Christmas. Over the years some stray bits of tinsel evolved into an array of plastic bells, colourful foil decorations and bags upon bags of tinsel.
The Black Rock regular and owner of a nearby bar Nathan Birkenshaw said: “When you think of Christmas in Wakefield, you think of a pint in The Black Rock surrounded by all those decorations.
“A collection curated over the course of twenty years by Shaun Salter, Matt Copeland, Marc Beachill, featuring all the tackiest tinsel you can imagine.”
Nathan and other regulars however “sorely missed” the tacky plastic fantastic decorations when the pub changed hands. The Black Rock donated the decorations to Wakefield Pride charity.
Nathan decided that his nearby bar The Golden Pineapple could be a worthy home for the decs which had remained in the charity’s closet.
“The festive decorations have been sorely missed, and after leaving The Black Rock in 2022, we thought they deserved a fitting new home not too far away”, he added.
“After making a small contribution to Wakefield Pride charity, and with some gentle arm-twisting, we became the custodians of Wakefield’s pride and joy – an absurd amount of 70s, 80s, and 90s Christmas decorations.
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NewsTranscript
00:00It's never too early to get festive and I'm here at the Golden Pineapple aka Tinseltown
00:07where it's tackier the better when it comes to Christmas decorations. Let's take a look.
00:13Believe it or not but these decorations had quite a following in their own right
00:19back in the day at the Black Rock Pub. The nearby pub before it changed leaseholders
00:26had acquired all these plastic fantastic decorations. Regulars to the Black Rock Pub
00:35including those who belong to Wakefield Pride Charity helped to acquire all these decorations
00:42over the years. It was a sight to behold every Christmas something that many people would look
00:49forward to seeing. Christmas how it should be. But when the pub changed leaseholders there was
00:58nowhere for the decorations so the pub donated them to Wakefield Pride Charity and now the owners
01:06of the Golden Pineapple which is just across the way have bought these fabulous decorations
01:14which took 22 hours to put up.
01:20Tell me about your Christmas decorations. So this was all compiled from stuff that was in the Black
01:26Rock for years. Every Christmas they got it out and then when the landlords changed over
01:32they donated it to Wakefield Pride and we bought it off Wakefield Pride. It's something that we
01:35thought we could help out with Wakefield Pride they can help us out and and create this.
01:40Absolutely missing it. And it obviously must have taken quite a while to put all these decks up.
01:49Yeah Matt and Mark from Wakefield Pride spent 22 hours all in all putting it all up which is
01:55them all over but it's their favourite kind of thing to do. They like to trim up and get
02:00everything really tacky but it is unbelievable all this stuff. I went and actually got to show
02:05the photos of it except I didn't see it for a couple of days and I got to show the photos and
02:08I was just like blown away. It's something to be honoured when you come in here.
02:14How important are these decorations to Wakefield in general do you think?
02:18Well I think it's one of the things that people used to love going and seeing at the Black Rock.
02:22Like it was something that it was like I've seen so many of my friends and stuff over the years say
02:26like it's not Christmas until you've been to the Black Rock to see the Christmas decorations and
02:31this is it's like nice to be able to continue this. I mean you've got those things from like
02:36years and years like gone by like things that are probably 20, 30 maybe 40 years old and it's
02:42just incredible to see them in this kind of place it's just and I think in this kind of
02:47building as well with it being quite an old building it just looks particularly magical really.