The Fleur de Lys pub at Lowsonford is famous for its pies. The classic pie was chicken and mushroom or steak and kidney, originally baked here by Mr Brookes in the 1950s (or more probably his cook). The pub supplied pies to chip shops all over the county; Mr Brookes moved to Emscote Mill in Warwick and expanded the business nation-wide. Production was eventually taken over by Pukka Pies, a firm based in Leicestershire.
Near two other attractions
However you can still enjoy a pie at the Fleur de Lys pub by the canal in Lowsonford. Close by are two other Warwickshire attractions that feature on this website: an interesting statue by Sir Anthony Gormley and the charming lock-keeper’s cottage (now in the care of the Landmark Trust).
Fleur de Lys is an interesting pub name. A fleur de lys is an ancient heraldic symbol of a lily flower with three petals (any gardener will tell you that lilies have five petals but this is presumably a bit of artistic licence). It can also mean an iris, which is botanically more correct as they do have three petals. It features on many coats of arms, including that of the British Royal Family.
Does anyone remember eating a Fleur de Lys pie – do tell us about it if so?
Comments
I remember the pies only too well. I was on an exhibition stand in Birmingham back in the late 60’s and there was another stand close by selling the Fleur-de-lys pies. I must have visited the stand at least six times in the day, and the same every day for the duration of the exhibition, the steak and kidney pies were that good. I now live in the Philippines and have a small restaurant and would love to be able to reproduce them here.
Thanks for the memories Joe. It’s great to know that the website is being enjoyed in the Philippines: you may be our farthest-flung contributor so far!
I understood pie production was in town somewhere near square until moving to a site now residential development opposite side of canal from Tesco. I worked there in school holiday 1969 in quality control.
Friday night was Fleur de Lys night. We always went on a Friday night for a pie and pint of beer which cost one pound for both back in 1968/1969. We used to stand in line to buy the pies in the car park and eat them outside. If it was a warm night we would sit by the canal or if raining in the car. Very rare did we sit inside the pub. It was always packed with visitors wanting to buy a pie.
Back in the 50s in the school holidays my mother would take me to the local fish and chip shop for a treat. The treat was chips with a fleur-de-lys pie. The thick brown, luxurious gravy in the steak and kidney pie was so wonderful I can still see it in my minds eye, as clear as day, even now in 2016! It was lovely to dip your chips in. Money was tight so I knew it wasn’t easy for my mother to take me there. These times created very special, precious memories. I wish I could still buy them! If you know anywhere please let me know. Thank you. If ever we come near your pub we will visit!
The pies were the BEST ever, especially the chicken and mushroom. I tried to persuade Mr Brookes to let me have the UK agency (in the late fifties), but at that time he couldn’t make up his mind what he wanted to do with it. Lucky for Pukka pies to take over eventually. The recipe was Mr Brookes’s, and NOT Pukka pies, as now stated in their web-page !!
Back in the 60s I was a gaming machine (one arm bandit) technician and had a round of 300 pubs to look after and maintain. The landlords of the pub would often offer a beer when I gave them tokens for making a service call but I would take a Fleur de Lys chicken and mushroom pie. They were incredible, and I would often eat 10 pies a day travelling around Warwickshire.
To this day I still crave the pie and would give my right arm to get the recipe and make my own. I am in New Zealand now and the Kiwi,s here would go nuts for a Fleur de Lys.
Just have to keep on trying and experimenting.
It’s good to hear from you Mike – and I think you definitely take the prize for our most distant contributor! It’s great to know that people all round the world are reading and contributing to this website. If you have any other memories of Warwickshire pubs we’d love to receive them.
Fleur de lys
My Grandparents took over the pub in the 1920s. Gordon and Elizabeth Tarplee. They had stables and horses and my mother rode her horse, Kelly, to school.
My grandmother started making pies for the people who stopped on the canal. She was an excellent cook who soon gained an enviable reputation. I have old furniture from the pub which they purchased when they moved in I was named Fleur after the pub.
Thanks Daphne for fascinating memories. You can see that your grandmother’s pies are internationally renowned!
The best thing I enjoyed were the pies when I lived in Birmingham, the juice running down my chin – gorgeous. Wish I could get them now.
I well remember often going out to the pub ‘for a ride’ in my Dad’s little van with my mom, dad, and sister in the fifties from our home in Yardley. We sat outside with a bottle of pop and bag of crisps. Once we were treated to a wonderful pie between us, I remember it clearly. One time my sister locked herself in the ladies and had to be rescued through the window.
At university and working in a pub to supplement my grant. Fleur-de-lys design list pie on my walk home from Selly Oak to Bournville is a lasting memory going back to 1960.
My great gran Agnes Chambers lived at the Fleur De Lys pub with Mr and Mrs Brookes. Mrs Brookes and my great gran made the first Fleur De Lys pie. My nan Agnes’ daughter is still alive aged 85 and she has many fond memories of the time she spent in Lowsonford and surrounding area.
Wow – Fleur de Lys pies brings back some memories. 1964 -66 I was studying for O levels at St Bede\’s. Lunch times we would go to the Chippy in Tavistock Street and chomp down a delicious chicken and mushroom pie. Better than school meals.
Like Joe – I live in the Philippines
I worked behind the bar at the Vikings pub, Hobs Moat Solihull when I was 18 and so did my mother and stepfather (both now deceased) in 1958 onwards. I well remember well that after closing time some of the regulars would make a nuisance of themselves by calling at a side door and asking for a pie. “I forgot to ask for one” they used to say. I’m sure the pies helped them sober up!
We used to visit in 1956/57 & had Chicken & Mushroom pies with a Britvic! Really yummy!
Louise Lee added a comment about Agnes Chambers working with Mr and Mrs Brookes. My dad John Griffiths was also there at the start and it moved to Park Street Warwick before it went to Emscote. My dad was with the company for a very long time, but I remember it well.
At the age of about 13 (1964) I was allowed to cycle from Shirley regularly ‘into the wilds’ of Warwickshire with friends. We discovered pubs and cafes one being the Fleur De Lys where we got Chicken and Mushroom pies and Idris ginger beer. Together with a packet of Smith’s crisps (plain only) with a blue paper twist of salt in. Somewhere close by was Yarningale Common and a cottage where they served snacks and drinks. What bliss!
For my sins I had a M&S pie today. What a load of rubbish. I am 87 now and remember the 50s in Brum when we always had the Chicken & Mushroom pies. Best food ever
1960s. I was staying in the area with friends and they took us to this pub and we ordered the chicken and Mushroom pies. I was hooked and am now 85 and have never been able to get a pie to beat it. I have tried numerous recipes trying to replicate it but none were as I remembered. Is there anywhere they can be bought today?
Currently I am visiting a friend in Venice. I am now in my 80s! When we were both 18/20 in 1957 we both worked as night manageresses at the Fleur de Lys pie shop in Birmingham, cooking and serving these amazing pies. I have gone on to make the chicken and mushroom pies for my family in the same one portion size. Always a winner!
Thanks for the memories Daphne. I understand that Pukka Pies still exists, but I don’t know whether the recipes are still the same.
Back in the ’60s I remember always on my way home from the city centre Coventry night club I would always go to the Wood End local chippy and have Fleur de Lys steak and kidney pie and chips, the best pies ever made. Pukka pie doesn’t measure up to them at all. I live in Torquay now and wish there was somewhere to buy them, the most amazing pies ever.
I am 73 and my wife 70 yrs of age, it seems only yesterday that in 1966 while courting we would buy a fleur de lys pie each outside the Gaumont Cinema in Birmingham and sneak them in while we went in to watch a film, one being the sound of music which had just started showing. “Happy days.” Left B’ham 1969 have not had once since.
My auntie used to run the village post office in Lapworth, which was a thatched cottage down near the canal. My Dad used to take us there for a day out in the country in the ’50s We would have the steak & kidney pies for lunch, oh what a memorable time I will always remember those beautiful flakey pastry pies, nothing today comes close to it. I now live in Australia so it’s a bit far to go, the pies here are rubbish.
Many thanks for your interesting comment Malcolm. There’s a photo of the Post Office at Lapworth on this site – said to be from the 1910s – but the building is tiled.
I was a young policeman in the 1960s and remember only too well having finished a shift at 10pm going to the pie stall (can’t remember where it was but in a car park in Birmingham) Always had a steak and kidney one night and then chicken and mushroom the next. Fabulous. Not had anything like them since!
Mr Roe Brookes was my God Father and I recall eating the pies when they were still made in the kitchen at the Fleur de Lys by his wife Marie. This was in the mid 1950s and they certainly tasted very good.
I’m lucky enough to live in the village of Lowsonford and often go to the Fleur… to have some of the scrumptious pies. They are still the best in the area. My personal favourite is the moo & blue pie (steak and ale with Stilton). It’s such a fabulous pub.
Wow! A website providing info on the best S&K and C&M ever produced. I’ll be honest, I never knew about the pub as I was introduced to the pies when my parents took me, when ~ 10 yrs old, to the pub that made them. The confusion arose because my parents always said that it was the Plough at Hunningham(?!) that we went to for the pies – sorry, Fleur de Lys pub. I heard later that pie production was moved to Warwick as larger premises were required. However, I was told by a chip shop owner much later that production later moved to South Wales (is that true?) and the quality of the pies dropped considerably, especially in the pie’s interior being dry!
It was a fundamental part of my growing up (in Coventry) where I and my friends regularly used to eat Fleur de Lys pies and chips while walking back from the chippy… and it was quite a ‘rite of passage’ to be able to do so without letting any gravy pass through your fingers – quite an art, but achieved with time! Since then I had always waxed lyrically about the pies, and was quite disappointed when I had found that they had changed so much. However, I’ll be visiting the pub next week for the first time ever, and am greatly looking forward to seeing if the original Fleur de Lys pie tradition lives on! Here’s hoping!
The best pie in the Midlands in the 60s there was 4 minis there most nights we all had race to see how many we ate. great times had by all we new Mr Brooks we have not been there for years must come soon.
I was a huge fan of both the steak and kidney and chicken and mushroom pies That was served in the 1950s At Lyons in Birmingham. Two Bob. That’s what it cost. That’s also what a wimpy burger cost, but it was no contest for the fleur-de-lis pie.
When I moved to Nashville, Tennessee and opened Nashvilles only British pub, “The Sherlock Holmes Pub” , I tried hard to make the steak and kidney and chicken and mushroom pie I loved as a young arts student. As a result, the pies became a permanent fixture on the menu. I close the pub in 2005. Nothing has taken it’s place. Sad.
I can remember the smell of the pies when passing the factory in Warwick. Located near Tesco next to the canal on the Emscote road. Long ago flattened now flats.
We had a chip shop in Jacksdale Notts, the Golden Fry from 1979-81. We used to sell Fleur de Lys pies – I loved steak and kidney with a touch of gravy.
This has brought back many happy memories from the early ’60s. My husband and I lived in South Birmingham so used to meet friends from the east side for a pie and a pint, better than hanging around in the city centre. In later years my boss lived in Lowsonford so visited again. Happy days, but sadly they are both gone now.
I’ve just had a chicken and mushroom pie and was telling my wife about the best ones ever made-the Fleur de Lys pies from Lowsonford and found your website. Great to see you are still going. In the fabulous summer of 1967 I had a holiday job as a barman at the pub. I served at the hatch for all the customers sitting in the garden and car park. The most popular order then was 2 pints of M&B and two Snowballs which we mixed up from Advocaat, lemonade and a cherry on top. They took ages to do as the queues got longer. At the end of the shift , all the staff were given a warm C&M pie to eat on the way home. Fond memories I’d nearly forgotten!
I worked part time in my mom and dads fruit and veg shop in Sedgley in the late 70s. For lunch I would go to Basil Grainger’s chip shop and have chicken and mushroom pie and chips. I remember it was served in its celophane wrapper, the taste was something else. Pukka are pretty good but not comparable to fluer de lys. So sad to know they were swallowed up and lost forever 🙁
I regularly visited the Fleur with friends to enjoy their delicious
pies. I lived in Solihull during the 1950’s and 60’s where I bought my first car – a 1930s Worseley 18 which had only done only 1200 miles as a Sunday Church car.
One of my first trips out as a ‘Learner’ driver was to the Fleur where it was spotted in the car park and I was offered £60 in the bar, the same as I had paid for it a few weeks earlier.
What would that be worth now?
My Grandma and Grandad use to deliver Fleur de Lys pies to chip shops all around Warwickshire in the 80s early 90s, I grew up on them. Pukka pies now just haven’t got that magic
In the early 60s I was an apprentice at AEI Rugby and a buddy & I would regularly get our lunch at the Crown Hotel – a pint & a Fleur de Lys pie. Absolute heaven! More recently have found Pukka pies, which take me back to the Fleur de Lys days. Still the best pies in Britain?
I remember having fleur-de-lis pie’s every Friday evening at the green Man in coles hill brilliant pie’s excellent Friday nights
Back in the late 1950s I used to meet every Thusrday night with two friends in the back bar of the Plough and Harrow on the Hagley Road in Birmingham. After closing time we would walk into the city centre and go to a pie-van parked on a bomb site at the back of the Repertory Theatre where we would each have a
Fleur de Lys pie – I always had the chicken and mushroom. Despite eating in some famous restaurants later in life those pies are still my favourite culinary memories.
We used to go fishing in the canal at Lowsonford and Lapworth and used to walk to the Fleur De Lys pub to buy pies for our dinner. We used to catch a steam train at Tyseley to get to Lapworth. 1950s, they moved to Warwick where they made them there, I worked on a freezing tunnel for freezing pies later on.
When my brother and I were young (back in the late 1950s and early 1960s), mum and dad would take us to a country pub on a Saturday evening in summer. The Oddfellows in Higham on the Hill was a favourite. They sold Fleur de Lys pies and the chicken and mushroom and steak and kidney were firm favourites. We could also get them from several outlets in Nuneaton. Surely the best pies ever? No ‘designer’ pies even come near in terms of texture, content and flavour.
My husband bought fleur de le pies for his chippy & I loved them, this was in the 90s, Dont know when they stopped producing the pies but I wish they still dis them as I’m just taking over cafe & would definitely use these pies xx
I worked servicing one armed bandits in the pubs in Warwickshire in the 60 ,s.
I used to give the landlord a hand full of tokens for his telephone call and in return would offer me a drink.
I would always take a Fleur-de-lis chicken a mushroom pie. I was addicted to them.
I live in NZ now an still crave a C & M pie
Just wish I could discover that secret ingredient.
A group of us made the Fleur de Lys pub a regular haunt of ours, especially Friday and Saturday evenings. Eating one of their pies was an essential part of each visit. I have since emigrated to Australia but, when visiting England, always return for a nostalgic pint to the pub that I remember so well and connect with very happy times. In fact I have incorporated the pub into a novel that I recently finished in which the Fleur du Lys plays a key role in solving the mystery at the heart of my story.
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