National Inventory Pub Crawling: Return to the Black Country

In November 2008, we had tickets to a gig in Birmingham by the brilliant (or so we think) rock band Anathema. We couldn’t afford a weekend away, but by leaving early in the morning we were able to visit a few good pubs on the day of the gig.

Our first stop was the Clent Bell & Cross, a Grade II listed building in the original National Inventory that I hadn’t previously visited. The tall wooden bar has four handpumps, but only three beers were on sale – Banks’s Bitter, Timothy Taylor Landlord and Enville Ale. Andrew tried a half of the Enville Ale, which was very pale, bright and in excellent condition, but rather expensive at £2.95 a pint. I had an even more expensive apple juice! The pub does a lot of food, which was rather pricey but looked (and smelt) wonderful. The pub itself is quite big, having five rooms, each with its own character, but we only saw three of them clearly as the others were full of diners. There are numerous features to admire here, mainly architectural ones showing how the rooms have been opened out and altered over the decades, with a small (disused) hatchway and some attractive panelling being the most obvious items; but we felt that overall the place was rather low on atmosphere, although the small bar room itself is a pleasant place to drink.

The second pub on our itinerary was the Shakespeare in Dudley – not to be confused with the Durham pub of the same name, which is also in the National Inventory! We were particularly pleased to find this one open after a failed attempt a couple of years previously. It only had two rooms open on the day we visited, with a plain wooden bar separating them. The tiny front room was very reminiscent of the old working men’s clubs, and indeed is described in the Inventory as an “exceptional survival” of a “basic working man’s local” – plain, unpretentious and sparsely furnished, but warm and cosy. There was no real ale here, so I had a half of keg Banks’s Mild and Andrew a coke while we watched the start of the rugby. We were interested to see that the darts board in the back room is centrally placed; it transpires that the league around here is taken quite seriously. We had a look through the window of the old smoke room as we left, which is kept locked until the evening trade arrives; another sparse room, with some comfy-looking leather upholstery the main feature.

The next stop was a real treat for me: the fabled Beacon Hotel in Sedgeley, home of the Sarah Hughes brewery. It was my first visit there for about ten years, and I was delighted to see that it hadn’t changed a bit. The first priority of course was to get a pint of Dark Ruby into my hand, while Andrew opted for a pint of Pale Amber (a total cost of £4.60). With the priorities sorted out we were then at leisure to look around. The bar is in its own little wooden enclosure, like an ornate kiosk in the middle of the pub; it has hatches to the corridor and the snug, with a window to the larger smoke room. The hatch between the bar and the corridor – the main serving point – is about two feet wide and very low, so that you have to bend down to speak or order a drink! The snug has rather dark, tasteful William Morris-style wallpaper and upholstered benches and chairs. The smoke room is much more spacious, with wooden panelling around the walls and ornate tables, together with sumptuous leather upholstered seating around the room combining to create a lovely warm feel. The tap room is almost plain in comparison, but has a good fireplace – a small iron range type. In these surroundings a straight glass just wouldn’t feel right, and it’s heartening to see both pints and halves served as a matter of course in old-fashioned dimpled glass mugs. Needless to say, the conservatory at the back has become much busier since July 2007.

It’s never easy tearing oneself away from the Beacon, but there comes a point when it has to be done. A chap we’d got chatting to there recommended we back-track a few miles and try the Britannia in Gornal, a GBG pub which he thought should be in the National Inventory. It isn’t at the time of writing, but it does have an unusual back room, with a bank of four handpumps set straight into the wall, with a small ‘barless bar’ to the side and a stained-glass hatch to the corridor. This is the best room, but the small bar to the left of the entrance is not without character, the area to the right open-plan with lots of plush benches and stools, a basic games room being accessible down a narrow corridor. We were just in time to beat the ‘4 o’clock rush’, quite a spectacle as the number of patrons more than doubles in a matter of minutes; as the second barmaid arrived three minutes late for her shift, the queue stretched across the bar and out onto the street! The chatty locals, as is common in this part of the county, made us feel very welcome as I supped a superb pint of Bathams Mild that cost a whopping £1.85 (I love drinking in this area as they still appreciate the merits of this fantastic beer style). Their lovely Best Bitter setting us back a whole 5 pence more.

Leaving our new friends, we moved on to our final stop before the gig, the Anchor at Digbeth. Gloriously unchanged since my last visit, it was a welcome return for both of us to this National Inventory (Grade II listed) and GBG pub, with its slowly revolving endless beer festival meaning we only had 12 real ales, a variety of Belgian bottled beers, a draft Weissbier and a range of ciders to choose from – a shame it’s so far away really. I tried the Hobsons Mild (which was until recently Champion Beer of Britain) and the Coastal Brewery Escalator to Heaven, a 4% beer from Cornwall, while Andrew opted for the 4.1% Pictish Glacier.

The gig venue, of course, had nothing remotely drinkable and we spent the evening drinking water and soft drinks, but the music was worth it. The early finish meant we had time to slip back into the Anchor again, to have another drop of our favourite ales from earlier, which isn’t a bad way to end a happy day’s drinking.

Sophie (with assistance from Andrew Frape)

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