An old pub standing by the Staffordshire & Worcestershire Canal to the south-east of the village centre, it was originally isolated in the middle of open fields, but has now been surrounded by post-war housing development. It is accessed from a residential street called Filance Road, and is not signed as such, although it is clearly visible along a side turning.
The original front door opens on to the canal towparth, and leads into the long public bar, with a real fire at one end, which enjoys a healthy local trade from the nearby estates. It is also popular with boaters in the summer months. There is a sizeable lounge to the rear right, where food appears to be popular. At the far end of the lounge is a lower section with bench seating. A rear door leads from the lounge to the car park.
A possibly unique feature is that the cask beers – on my visit Doom Bar and Hobgoblin Gold – are dispensed by electric metered pump into brim measure glasses. The fact that they fit in the glass with the sparkler fairly slack underlines how brim measures provide a small degree of overmeasure. The handpumps mounted on the bar are dummies. This style of presentation may discomfit some cask drinkers, but arguably it retains more condition in the beer than if drawn through a handpump, and the beer is certainly real enough.
The StreetView link shows the rear of the pub. The front is not directly accessible by road and I have borrowed the photograph from CAMRA’s WhatPub site. The pub has an extensive car park and is around 15 minutes’ walk from Penkridge Station on the Wolverhampton-Stafford line.
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