It features in the books of city author Kathleen Dayus and has a history spanning more than 150 years but the former George and Dragon pub, in the heart of Birmingham's has been a derelict eyesore for almost two decades.
But now headway is finally being made in a bid to transform the former Mitchells & Butlers hostelry into a small, mixed-use complex with a café or restaurant and three flats.
A new vehicle called G&D Projects has been set up by city businessman Gurbinder Sandhu who is working with a team to bring the pub back to life and restore it to its former glory.
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Currently draped in scaffolding, the pub in Albion Street, which is due to be watertight by the the winter, meaning it should be able to survive the elements over the cold and wet months.
Mr Sandhu told the Post it had been a difficult journey after previous potential investors had pulled out while a blank wall was met when they approached the banks and heritage organisations for funding.
"The most recent investor pulled out about six months ago and this was a big blow to us," Mr Sandhu explained.
"This left us in a bit of quandary but by that time we had become emotionally attached to the building so we decided to support it ourselves and do what we could to make it watertight such as re-roofing, guttering and cleaning the façade.
"It's very speculative, it's something that, if you were looking at just a sheer investment, you would not consider it twice as it would not get the kind of return you would expect."
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The restoration project is expected to cost in the region of £400,000 and will eventually house a restaurant unit of up to 2,500 sq ft and three, one-bedroom flats of between about 700 and 750 sq ft each.
The team also wants to restore the old signs to give the building a Dickensian look.
The George and Dragon has been Grade II listed since 1982 and a heritage report compiled for the project by Shropshire consultancy Richard K Morriss & Associates suggests a pub was on the site from around 1851.
The report says the main significance of the building is in its external appearance and its status as an increasingly rare survival of mid-19th century architecture in that part of the Jewellery Quarter.
The building has been extended since its original construction, although the last of these was in the early 1920s, and it once also housed a brewery before switching to being solely a pub and the eventual takeover by M&B.
Kathleen Dayus, who was born in 1903 in Hockley and died just a few weeks shy of her 100th birthday, used to frequent the George and Dragon and used it as a setting throughout her books. The picture below shows a dedicated plaque commissioned for the Dayus Square project.
The heritage report concluded: "The pub closed towards the latter part of the 20th century and has been becoming more and more derelict ever since.
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"The fact that it still survives, despite vandalism and the theft of much of its interior fixtures and fittings, is quite remarkable."
Mr Sandhu added: "The area will be good when it's finished, the public square looks very nice and there's a new school next door so the area's coming up.
"The Jewellery Quarter lends itself to good quality, independent traders which offer a different take on the services they provide so we could generate interest among occupiers that perhaps already have one or two outlets.
"But we haven't approached anyone like that at this stage, our focus has been on making it look as presentable as possible."