UNLOCKING THE KEY TO WILLENHALL

April 2024. Willenhall.

The only downside of my Big Day Out in Wolves was a lack of GBG pubs to tick, newbies in Wombourne and Kingswinford just out of reach due to what we pros call “Ye Hellishness Of Bumpy Buses Betwixt Wolves And Dudley“.

But there was one option for a tick a ten minute bus ride east, a first trip to Willenhall since 2017, and I’m still not convinced that the Jolly Collier wasn’t in Short Heath. ALL the towns in the Black Country are virtually contiguous with each other.

Well, it looks like it’s virtually contiguous with Wolverhampton, but Willenhall is actually firmly Walsall, a town which simply refuses to have a new entry as it doesn’t want me back.

Willenhall, historic home of lock and key manufacture. Nowadays it’s most famous as the home of Sporting Khalsa, whose women’s team I saw in the FA Cup 18 months ago. Back then I said I’d use “Unlocking the key” in a Willenhall blog, and RetiredMartin only lets you down on a day with a “y” in it.

Tim Martin often lets down residents of working class towns whose Spoons are under-performing, and Willenhall’s near 50,000 souls still mourn the closure of the Malthouse,

but at least that means the town’s other pubs will have benefitted, right ?

Right ?

The town centre still has a lot of character, though the oldest pub hasn’t served a pint since 1955 and seems to stand purely as a landmark.

OK, scoot past the street art,

to a pub that really was bustling midweek.

BRAPA and I have noted the trend in recent years of GBG debutants not looking at all like you’d expect (i.e. NOT micros, taps or Spoons), and the Three Crowns is another of those joyously Proper Pubs where Carling Coors dominates.

So, what do you get here, apart from Stephen Bunting on the telly V Gracie Abrams on the jukebox.

Now there’s two names you don’t expect in the same sentence.

Well, “Have you got a CAMRA card ?“, obviously. I sometimes wonder if I look like CAMRA, but I suspect everyone who orders cask rather than Carling gets asked that.

It’s a lovely chewy pint of Salopian Golden Thread (NBSS 3+), worthy of GBG entry, and the sort of place that would have been in jeopardy if that nonsense motion to reduce the size of the Good Book had been passed last week.

Discounts on drinks seems to be a theme in Willenhall;

but sadly closed pubs are the other theme as I took a walk east towards my chosen Chinese takeaway,

the solidly NCTSS 3.5 Kwang Wah (not a Pete Wylie project).

Just as you can judge a pint by its lacings, you can tell the quality of your crispy beef by the darkness of the brown.

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

11 thoughts on “UNLOCKING THE KEY TO WILLENHALL”

      1. Also Wah Heat and The Mighty Wah! Reminiscent of SpizzEnergi who were also Spizz Oil and Atletico Spizz 80. Weren’t the late 70s/early 80s great?

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  2. The Olde Toll House was a classic English restaurant (Think Prawn Cocktail starters and a Rump steak) , sadly succumbed in early 2025.

    Funny old place is Willenhall (worked there 21 years now) under Walsall council with a Wolverhampton postcode, full of Wolves fans

    The Wetherspoons was always packed.

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  3. Great stuff. Inspiration for my Wolves mop up day tomorrow, didn’t realise it had a straightforward bus route! That Dudley one is a killer on the bladder innit?

    Those Sporting Koala ladies incurred Tom’s wrath by eating all the post match food before Hull City ladies (and he) got chance.

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    1. I wondered where you’d be today. I’m sure Paul Mudge would have taken you to Candid craft bar in Stafford for preemptive.

      Those Greater Dudley pubs are a nightmare by bus. I’d rather walk the 4 miles.

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  4. “Those Greater Dudley pubs are a nightmare by bus” but tram tracks in Dudley now suggest maybe for not much longer.
    Willenhall being the “historic home of lock and key manufacture” is the recent history since the Grand Junction Railway reached the town in 1837 ( linking it to Stafford ). The previous historic home of lock and key manufacture was Brewood as it had been conveniently situated on the Shropshire Union Canal since about 1790. I had lunch with my brother in Brewood last Tuesday, at the Bridge where I went a few times during last year fearing their Banks’s Mild and Marstons Old Empire might soon become history.
    .

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