Atherstone Pub Crawl

An afternoon spent in the north Warwickshire market town Atherstone, situated midway between Tamworth and Nuneaton.  Home to just over 9,000 people, it was once a centre for hat making, has one of those free-for-all pancake day football games, and a pretty impressive number of public houses.

I arrived on a Sunday lunchtime, strolling down the main street to the market square which has three pubs/bars facing onto it and is overlooked by St Mary's church, featuring an impressive octagonal embattled tower.

A few steps from the church is the Angel Ale House, with a place in the Good Beer Guide '24.

Angel Ale House (24 Church Street, Atherstone, CV9 1HA)
Atherstone's sole current Good Beer Guide entry has a fair few regional pub of the year awards hung on the wall and was serving a decent range of real ales when I visited.
Five pump clips, and miniature bottles for you to check the colour, offering up beers from Oakham, Woodfordes, Vale of Glamorgan, and Leatherbritches.  I went to the dark side with a lovely Beowulf 'Chocolate Porter'.  Everything reasonably priced between £3.60 to £4.20 a pint.

 

Sadly the turntable next to the bar wasn't in action, the piped music featuring the lesser-heard Aha 'Take on Me', and the very frequently heard Boston 'More than a Feeling' and ELO's 'Mr Blue Sky'.

There were a reasonable number of punters for a Sunday afternoon, some taking drinks out onto the tables on the square.  The retirement bash seemed to be favouring coffee over real ale, although perhaps the hardcore ladies continued their celebrations by hitting the Bass in the New Swan later in the day.

Talking of Bass...

The Black Horse (156 Long Street, Atherstone, CV9 1AE)
This was one of a handful of pubs in the town promising to serve a pint of Bass and I wasn't to be disappointed on that front.  Two hand-pumps in the Black Horse, although the second had it's Doom Bar pump clip turned around, not causing me any disappointment whatsoever.

The trouble with the Black Horse is that - despite looking like it would be from the outside - it wasn't very pub-like.  There was just one alcove in the front room with proper pub seating by the fireplace.  Beyond that we were into the realm of functional high-backed restaurant chairs.

I took my pint into the back room and decided this would be a good a spot for lunch.  So here's my Sunday nut roast - lacking a Yorkshire pudding - but a good feed for the day.

The attentive staff apologised that it took so long, explaining they had to cook nut roast to order 'cos they don't get many vegetarians.  Still, better than one pub in North Devon I visited recently that didn't do any veggie options as "we're a farming community and we don't have vegetarians round these parts!"

Glancing at the map, I realised that I could continue straight down the road for about a mile and it would take me into the neighbouring village of Mancetter and a heritage pub.
That seemed a good way to walk off lunch instead of just crossing the road to the Old Swan.
The Blue Boar makes for a good pub picture..

The Blue Boar (Watling Street, Mancetter, CV9 1NE)
The current pub was rebuilt around 1940 for Mitchells and Butlers on a large corner plot, car park in front of the sizable building.
I stepped through the door into a loud and raucous public bar, where the local folk had chosen to stand around the bar shouting to each other rather than utilise any of the seating.

On the bar were three beers from the local Sperrin brewery: golden, ruby, and mild.  Alongside Doom Bar.  A pint of the mild for myself, taken into the peace and quiet of the lounge.

Mild on great form.  Local CAMRA mag to read.  Lovely surroundings EXCEPT for that wallpaper!

The Blue Boar has a design typical of large pubs built at the time, where a number of rooms surround a central bar.  Beyond my seat in the lounge was the old Smoke Room which has been extended and turned into a restaurant area.
Here's the PropUptheBar bench seating picture of the month...

Finishing a very satisfying mild, I trekked back along the road to Atherstone.
Long Street really didn't need the boy racer driving up and down it at 80mph.

Back where I was 45-minutes earlier, the Old Swan sits straight across the road from the Black Horse.

The Old Swan (175 Long Street, Atherstone, CV9 1AH)
Another pub with a mention in the Heritage Pub guide, this time because the interior remains little changed since a '60's refurbishment.  The front room has a dozen surprisingly sweary and cheery-looking locals on the three tables facing the bar.  There is a second section to the right of the front door with good trad seating, a busy back room, and a fair few people opting for the garden on this sunny afternoon.

Cask on offer was Banks's Amber or Courage 'Directors', the latter with a cardboard make-shift pump clip.  The Old Swan served a decent Banks's and was a pub I was pretty settled in.

 

Just a short way along Long Street was another destination that I'd got marked down for a pint of Bass.
The Hat & Beaver (I'm reliably informed this is now the only pub with that name in the country) looked every bit a proper boozer.

Hat & Beaver (130 Long Street, Atherstone, CV9 1AF)
Sadly it was a little bit too quiet within.  There are two sections to the bar, one facing the back room and a counter in the front room where you'll find the cask hand pump.
A couple of old boys sat on the bench seating chatting to the landlord and keeping half an eye on footy on the TV.  A handful of folks had picked the table right at the far end of the back room.  I un-sociably sat right in the middle on some well-worn cushioned bench seating, enjoying the Bass. 

After a quiet pint in the Hat & Beaver, I returned to more signs of life in the market square.  I figured I'd call in to the Market Tavern which had a good crowd and a bunch of motorbikes outside.

Market Tavern (21 Market Street, Atherstone, CV9 1ET)
It looked like the Market Tavern was making an attempt to challenge the Angel for a beer guide place.  Pump clips stuck on the beams and lots of signage advertising the real ales and ciders.  There were five handpumps across the bar with two from Windsor & Eton Brewery, a breakfast stout from a brewery I didn't identify, 'Swoop' from Brass Castle, and - my pick - an Unbarred 'Joosy'.

This was a cracking place to finish a crawl around the town.  There were a fair few customers, the sun was shining through the windows, there was some lively music pumping out the speakers, and the very crafty 'Joosy' went down so easily.
All-in-all, a town I knew little about beforehand that was well worth a visit for a crawl around some of the pubs.

Rugeley Pub Explorations

An afternoon hop into the town of Rugeley, where I had a Spoons cinema conversion, Heritage Pub, brew pub, and micro pub, to visit.

The first port of call, handy for the Town station, is this grand old red brick cinema...

The Plaza (Horsefair, Rugeley, WS15 2EJ)
This purpose-built cinema opened as The Picture House in November 1934.  It was renamed the Plaza in 1940 and continued to show movies to the folk of Rugeley until 1996, when the last popcorn was sold whilst Will Smith saved the world in Independence Day.  After that final film had been shown, J.d Wetherspoon brought the building and opened it as a pub in 1998.

It doesn't really retain that much of an old cinema feel to it.  There's some booth seating at the very front where the old lobby would have been, then a couple of steps take you to the bar and a rear section with high ceiling and a balcony to the side.
No one bats an eyelid in the nearby Stafford  Picture House when you clambour up the stairs to take a picture of the pub, but I got some funny looks doing the same here. 

The cask choice on this visit (alongside your Spoons regulars) came from Enville, Green Jack, a single hop series offering from Acorn, and a pale ale from Nottinghamshire brewery Pheasantry.
Just £1.49 for the Pheasantry 'Excitra'.  

A perfectly fine pint (and who's going to complain for £1.49) but what I really wanted was to find some Banks's bitter...

For this, I headed through the very quiet streets of the town centre, then to Market Street for a pub in the Heritage guide.

Red Lion (19 Market Street, Rugeley, WS15 2JH)
This Grade II-listed inn dates back to the 16th century and was last refitted in the 1930's, at the same time that the Plaza was opening the doors for the first time and showing Shirley Temple in 'Pardon my Pups'.

Heading through the front door you're in a cosy bar with low beams, red quarry tiled floor, and wood panels.  The bench seating around the sides was busy with locals.  The pub poodle came to check me out and found me thoroughly uninteresting.

I procured my pint of Banks's Amber - just the one cask ale, making for an easy choice.
The bar and carpeted side room were busy, so I squeezed around the side of the counter and through the door into the basic room with darts board to the right-side of the pub.

Shame there was no space in the main bar, as I had this room all to myself, other than when a chap popped in, rearranged his shopping bags, and popped out again.
Boston's 'More than a Feeling' played in the background and was very predictably followed by 'Don't Stop Believing'.  Then a run of three Foreigner tracks - as much Foreigner as I need this year. 
And the Banks's amber went down a treat.

Moving on from the Red Lion, I had a 15-minute walk ahead of me into suburban Rugeley, in search of a micro.
Down here somewhere...

In the corner of the Fernwood Shopping centre...
Would it be worth the walk?

The Rusty Barrel (Fernwood Shopping Centre, Green Lane, Rugeley, WS15 2GS)
I timed my arrival just after the 4pm opening but there were a half dozen in already and by the time I drained the last of my pint all the tables were taken.

This is a single room micro pub with some pleasingly simple wooden high-backed bench seating, a run of barrels down the middle, and a satisfying display of pump clips on the ceiling.

There were four interesting cask ales to pick from, plus crafty kegs and real cider on offer.  I opted for a pint of the Green Duck 'Duck Dastardly', a dandelion and burdock stout, which sounds dubious but was pretty darn fine.
I did enjoy the Rusty Barrel and was glad I'd made the effort to walk out here.

I made the trek back through the housing estates toward the town centre, pausing to take my first random photograph of someone's driveway since Plymouth last August.
Is it really necessary to park the 4x4 there, rather than, say, in the big garage?  Or are they just showing off its off-road prowess?
I'd wake up in a cold sweat wondering if I'd put the handbrake on properly.

Time for some marginally more conventional pictures of the pub, as I reached the Vine Inn.
Parked cars on a sensible level surface, but getting in the way of my photo.

The Vine (Sheep Fair Close, Rugeley, WS15 5AT)
This doesn't strike me as the most obvious looking pub - I may have mistaken it for housing had it not been for the sign on one wall and Bass light amongst the foliage above the door.

It's a pleasing basic place within, with a multi-room layout including a couple of spacious seating areas and a snug.
There were two cask ales on offer, one from the Vine's on-site brewery, the other from Staffordshire micro Blythe.

A home-brew best bitter for me, supped in the window seat with wood cracking away on the stove to my side.
That heady blend of dandelion and burdock in the 5.2% stout must have gone to my head by this point, judging by the blurry photo.

I may have only been there for one midweek afternoon, but I think I've done the best of the Rugeley pubs.  I'd certainly done four completely different places and had four decent beers.

Drinking up at the Vine, I made my way to the bus station and the number 826 to Stafford.  That would be my base for the night and the source of some Titanic stouts - somewhere I'll be waffling on about on the blog sometime soon.
But before that, some Bass...