The story behind The Garrison, the famous pub from Peaky Blinders, is a mix of local legend, real history, and modern change. The building that inspired Tommy Shelby’s base of operations is a real place, but its journey from a historic pub to a forgotten building and now to something new is full of surprises.
While the TV show made it famous worldwide, the real pub at 110 Garrison Lane in Birmingham’s Small Heath area has its own long history. It was reportedly a hangout for the actual Peaky Blinders gang over a century ago. After being closed and empty for years, it has finally reopened—but not as a pub. It is now a shop selling kitchens and bedrooms.
The Real Pub Behind the Legend
The Garrison pub is a real building with over 150 years of history. Records show it was operating as far back as 1871.
Local stories in Small Heath say the violent gang known as the Peaky Blinders, who were active from the late 1800s until the 1920s, drank there. The gang’s territory included Small Heath, Bordesley, and Digbeth, making it a likely spot for them.
“There’s no hard evidence tying the real-life Peaky Blinders to The Garrison, but locals in Small Heath will swear it’s true,” one report notes.
By 1921, the pub was run by Herbert Edward Pickering and his family, who lived on the premises. During that time, Pickering was involved in a legal case to win the right to sell alcohol to fans of the Birmingham City football club, whose stadium is nearby.
Why the Show Wasn’t Filmed There
Fans might expect the TV series to be filmed at the actual Garrison, but that was not possible. For much of the show’s run, from 2013 to 2022, the real pub was closed, empty, and falling apart.
Instead, the show’s creators built the interior of The Garrison on a soundstage in Manchester. For the exterior street scenes, they used the atmospheric Stanley Dock in Liverpool. The show’s setting, the gritty streets of 1920s Birmingham, was largely recreated at other locations like the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley and streets in Liverpool.
Before filming began, star Cillian Murphy visited the real derelict pub to get a feel for the area and help perfect his accent.
A Decade of Decline and a New Future
The pub’s decline began long before the TV show. It finally closed as a working pub in 2014 and was sold at an auction held at Villa Park football stadium for £183,000. Plans to turn it into apartments failed to happen.
For years, it sat vacant. Steven Knight, the creator of Peaky Blinders, once expressed a desire to reopen it, noting that tourists, including visitors from Japan, would stop to take pictures of the boarded-up building.
In 2024, the building began a new chapter. It reopened as a retail store called ‘Elegant,’ specializing in kitchens and bedrooms. A worker at the store confirmed the building had been closed for a “very long time” and that the shop started taking orders in mid-2024. This transformation marks a major change for a site many fans hoped would be restored as a pub and tourist attraction.
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Visiting Other Peaky Blinders Filming Locations
While the original Garrison has changed, fans can still visit many locations used to film the show’s iconic scenes:
- Black Country Living Museum, Dudley: This open-air museum stood in for the backstreets of Birmingham, including Charlie Strong’s scrap yard and Canal Street. It’s considered a major home for the show’s filming.
- Stanley Dock, Liverpool: The walkways here were used as the exterior street for The Garrison and for the Season 1 finale showdown.
- Arley Hall & Gardens, Cheshire: This stately home served as Tommy Shelby’s mansion.
- Powis Street, Liverpool: This street was used as the setting for Watery Lane, the Shelby family’s street.
The real Peaky Blinders gang faded away in the 1930s, overtaken by rival gangs like the Birmingham Boys. The real Garrison pub on Garrison Lane has now also moved on from its past, finding an unexpected new life far removed from the world of Tommy Shelby.
