Staffordshire is in my Top 3 counties for proper pubs; traditional seating, old codgers drinking Bass and Pedi, a lack of pretension. It’s also one of the cheapest counties, producing that virtuous circle of high turnover, high quality and low waste. That applies as much to food as beer.
I’ll wager few folk outside of South Stafford could place Cheslyn Hay on a map. It shelters a mile from the M6 Toll Road with the flesh honeypots of Cannock and Brownhills just out of reach, particularly on foot.
As a former mining village, it’s got those pleasant stretches of countryside you get wherever there’s big holes in the ground.
Disappointingly, there are fences and signs sternly telling me not to enter the lakes. A sense of being told off continues through a succession of signs telling me to keep out, don’t reverse, Wolves fans go home, one-way, and this one at the library that chills me to the bone;
Forty-five minutes is all I needed to walk the bounds, and conclude that the Colliers Arms is, indeed, the centre of the village.
I regularly tell you about pubs that are reducing their hours to open at 4pm, unable to make a decent lunchtime trace viable. The Colliers is heaving by 12.30 with custom across the ages, and deals with them with efficiency and humour.
Plenty of drinkers, but it’s the bargain menu that is brings in the pensioners, and probably explains why the chippy wasn’t open at lunchtime.
What stands out is not just the sub-Spoons prices, but what a compact menu of unfussy food that is. I had the roast, it was tasty, filling food for the price of a pint in Cambridge, paired with a cellar-cool pint of Golden Glow (NBSS 3) that was just good enough to prevent you wishing they served Batham’s.
The beer range was equally short and centred on the well-known, which is sensible when your market is pensioners.
The soundtrack of ’70s Motown was quiet enough for nonagenarian Gladys to negotiate her Christmas present with her daughter. “Go on, surprise me. No don’t. The sweater on page 82 in the Argos catalogue will do.“. Gladys then negotiated a child’s portion of the roast to save a quid. You can say and do what you like when you’re 90.
Interesting, good value pub food. It can be done.
retiredmartin 
Did you ask for that pint at the top of the page to be topped up?
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I regard folk who ask for a top-up in much the same way as folk who ask for an encore at gigs.
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It’s normally the whole audience which asks for (and usually gets), encores at gigs.
Those prices are amazing. Think I’ll move to Cheslyn Hay when I retire! Some good memories of Cannock and Rugeley btw.
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The house is named Saredon Road Farm House.
Saredon Road Farm House,
Saredon Road,
Cheslyn Hay, Walsall WS6 7JD
Estimated Price:
£208,641
A bargain that needs some lovin’.
I do like the look of that Holden’s. The Chicken, Leeks & Wiltshire Ham Pie also sounds good. I had the same at the Penn Street Squirrel paired with a St. Austell Ruck and Roll.
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So what are the other two top counties for proper pubs? And are we talking Real Counties or those newfangled keg ones?
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Montgomeryshire and Hexhamshire, of course 😉
Until Stockport gains its own county status, anyway (too many foody places to rate Cheshire highly).
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I thought I read that Stockport was part of the city of Manchester.
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Say that to Mudgie’s face !
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Staffordshire is I believe England’s third biggest county and covers a multitude of sins. Cheslyn Hay is more akin to that well known historic county, West Midlands, in terms of demographics and, arguably, pub culture.
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Spot on.
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The Bull and Bladder still does either steak & mushroom pie, shepherds pie or a couple of huge faggots, all served with chips & peas for a measly three quid, I’ve only ever had the hot grub so I couldn’t tell you what they charge for the pork pie/cheese platters, and then there’s the beer………
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Good point. Cheslyn Hay has a Black Country feel, without the delightful accents of course.
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