My last Staffordshire GBG tick came just outside Newport, Salop. As is traditional, this is what a completed Staffs looks like, Mr BRAPA (I expect Pubmeister first completed it when it was still called Ye Middle Mercia).
The last tick was the Red Lion in Sutton, another place name that pops up in multiple counties. Another pub, too, that wasn’t open when I made a special detour to visit on Friday lunchtime a while ago. I phoned twice before this visit to make sure they weren’t closing especially for me this time. They sounded very nice.
A bit like the pub, then. Pleasant and tidy, but also unpretentious and beery, at least on a Sunday evening once the diners have gone. Five points for naming the flowers.
Still bearing the familiar Banks’s livery, but taking full advantage of free house status with this range (possibly);
Most “proper” GBG followers would have gone for the Box, I’m told, so I went for the Banks’s. I resent it being renamed Amber, but it’s still a proper beer, nicely cool here (NBSS 3), and it’s what the other gentlefolk drink.
The class extends to the Beryl Cook art in the Gents though I confess I’d thought this entirely innocent until Matthew Lawrenson set me straight.
A minor award too, for the best placement of a Prosecco ad.
Newport is an oddity, seemingly tied more to Telford than to the Black Country, and with a low-key beauty. Quite how it manages a Premier Inn, I don’t know; presumably folk travelling from Wolverhampton to Whitchurch need at least one overnight stay.
On a good day, it looks a little like Bridgnorth-on-the-cheap, with a top quality parish church and more black-and-white timber than in the whole of the Potteries. The pubs look solid rather than classic, and it’s a long time since the Shakespeare graced the Guide.
A decade ago, Spoons might have been tempted to convert the magnificent old ballroom, but it still stands forlorn but lovely.
Pub redemption for the town comes a few yards past the market place, but that’s a jewel for later.
retiredmartin 
By coincidence, I’ve been to the Red Lion at Sutton fairly recently. A nice, if unremarkable pub, but probably not at its best on Sunday lunchtime when it is overwhelmingly foody. Black Sheep, although good, was a rather eye-watering £3.64. I didn’t spot the picture in the gents.
The only current GBG entry in Newport is the New Inn, a solid Joule’s pub in their usual style. I spotted a place called Ozzy’s Sports Bar near the church, although it’s not on WhatPub – I don’t know if that’s going to have a crafty makeover.
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New Inn post later, took a few too many photos.
In Red Lion, I think Bank’s a bit less eyewatering.
Hope it was the Gents I went in….
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That could explain the air punch.
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Standing ovation for that, Dave.
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Your comment, I mean, not me going in the Ladies (by mistake).
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I knew!
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Spoons manage to sustain a pub in Market Drayton, which is a similar size to Newport, but failed in Whitchurch.
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Interesting. I’d forgot about Whitchurch. 3 similar sized towns I’d guess. The Newport site is too big anyway.
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There seems to be some debate on Twitter as to whether the creature in the picture is a cat or a dog. I can see the muzzle is a bit dog-like, but then again it could be a Persian cat. And the ears and tail are more cat-like, as is the attitude of the foreleg, like a cat scooping food out of a bowl.
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If these debates had happened during Beryl Cooks lifetime she might have had a higher profile in the snobby art world.
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Nice post. Not stalking you after Matlock but only finished Staffs today – Wetton and Earl Grey at Leek both excellent. Did you blog on Royal Oak at Wetton?
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Well done Duncan, that’s equivalent of me finishing Dumfries ! Posted Manifold Contrasts on Nov 5, did that and Thorpe same day. Both very good in their way, Hartington always a little disappointing ! Early Grey a favourite.
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Will look that up before I write about it. Also did Thorpe today to finish Derbyshire but not my sort of place. Few and far between now until the new Guide.
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