Royal Court Hotel / Keresley Hall

I have a lot of memories from here: Being taken to visit my grandmother and being smuggled in under my grandfather's coat because children were not allowed on the ward. She said she would die if she went into hospital, though in reality they only had her in to give her some bed-rest. But she said she'd die - so she did. Visiting my grandfather when he was in one of the wards, then sitting at his house waiting for him to come home. He was kept waiting in the ambulance on a freezing winter's day and he caught pneumonia and died. My friend's father was caretaker during the period between it being closed as a hospital and opened as a hotel. Another old Henry's boy, Rich Moule. We'd play football in the wards, or scare each other telling ghost stories about mad surgeons and medical accidents. My father was a friend of Fred Kilpatrick and he often used to pop in for lunch or a chat, then call for me to come and collect him. Spud worked here as a waiter and I used to pick him up from the staff quarters when we were going out, or we'd take some scrumpy in and play music. One of my daughter's had her wedding reception here, and I wandered round with one of the manager's trying to remember how the place used to be laid out.

Yet another with Meriden on her passport. Forget the 2 farms, I am really proud to come from the centre of England i.e. Meriden. I was born there, had my engagement party there as well as my wedding reception - watch out, if it ever becomes an undertakers I will know my days are numbered!! I do remember it often being difficult to book a table for the carvery, to celebrate family events etc., as coach parties came from all over to sample the experience. I believe some years later after I had moved away it became a Medieval Carvery. Regards, Little Nut

I remember many years ago my uncle treated all of our side of the family to a carvery meal to celebrate his wedding anniversary, it was the first time we'd all had a carvery. A chap had piled his plate so high he was having a job to carry it without food falling off the plate, my mum spotted him and nudged me and said "Look at that, eyes bigger than the belly". She'd no sooner said it when he slipped and the lot ended up on the floor. Needless to say the next plate was less overloaded when he walked back to his table, with a very red face, to his adoring wife who didn't stop chewing his ear off for the rest of the evening.

My late father was a patient in Keresley for some weeks in the mid-1950s, very ill with renal colic. I recall it as a dismal place, but nevertheless he received wonderful treatment, recovering afterwards at a nursing home in Kenilworth. I also recall it as the place I first tasted white chocolate, which a fellow visitor shared with me.