The Loggerheads Pub

The Loggerheads is one of my major settings in Dead Flowers. In fact, more action takes place there than anywhere else in this Nottingham-set novel.

The first reviews are in and they’ve been lovely, which makes me very happy. One of my favourite comments so far was from The Bookbag about the setting. “Monaghan’s other great skill is in making the city of Nottingham come alive, to the extent that it’s almost a character in its own right.“

Representing Nottingham fully and vividly is really important to me, which is why this particular comment means a lot to me.

I’d like to think that the Loggerheads had a lot to do with that. The real version of the pub sat on Cliff Road, a small crescent of council houses almost in the centre of town. This street has always fascinated me; its closeness to the bustling city centre and yet its separateness from all that. Its strange position right at the bottom of a cliff, and under what used to be the city’s prison. Its history, previously as Narrowmarsh, a dirt poor, disease-ridden slum. Walking along Cliff Road to the pub I can almost feel the place bristle with all that history.

The version of the Loggerheads in the book is my made up, fictional version of the pub. I did lots of research, but I’d never been there myself. I think this is better, in a way. I’ve invented two versions, two sets of characters hanging out there, the first in the 60’s and 70’s, when it was thriving, and a contemporary version where the pub is closed.

I hope readers enjoy visiting my Loggerheads and, indeed, my Nottingham