Anchor, High Offleyback to pub details please note - reviews on this site are purely the opinion of site visitors, so don't take them too seriously.
The pub is NOT closed as is being shown on a particular app.
Please spread the word as trade is being badly affected and the pub needs the campers and walkers as well as the boaters to survive.
lot14 - 22 May 2017 19:11 |
JimmyRibble said it all two years ago and the pub hasn't changed. Good beer, good company, great pub, what more could you need
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Not been to this drinker for over 20 yrs now,but hoping for a return visit in next couple of months. It looks like they dont sell Owd Roger any more.Anyone been recently and know which beers are on?
I remember it as a great find ,a little canal pub of a bygone age. Quite isolated and rural. Really looking forward to a return visit;this time without "She who Must "
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Having finally managed to find it open, I have to say it was everything it promised to be - an unspoilt rural alehouse in a lovely setting by the canal. Homely and basic, yes, dirty certainly not. The Wadworths 6X was fine.
However, that doesn't excuse the fact that the opening hours in the Good Beer Guide are misleading - and it would make sense for pubs that open unusual or limited hours to display a sign saying what their hours are.
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The Anchor Inn is a splendidly unspoilt canalside gem close to Bridge 42 of the Shropshire Union Canal and not too far away from Eccleshall.
It's a brick built pub resembling a private house that has been in the same family for over 100 years.
Entering through the front door, one finds a pub with two unspoilt basic rooms with a small central bar counter that resembles the back end of a barge. The bar on the right has a quarry tiled floor and 2 high backed settles. There's a grandfather clock and a real fire. Above the fireplace are a number of photos and certificates relating to the pub. The room on the left is equaaly basic and unspoilt with formica tables and wooden benches.
Sitting in the small intimate room on the right with its real fire and friendly locals really does feel like sitting in someone's living room and, when not serving, Olive, the longstanding landlady, would come and sit by the fireplace alongside the customers. Other customers appeared to be a mixture of passing walkers, local barge owners / dwellers and caravanners from the site within which the pub sits. Needless to say, there's no fruit machines or music, although I gather that impromptu folk music sessions are held when someone brings a guitar.
There's a well kept lawn at the front of the pub with tables for outside drinking where one can watch the passing canal traffic. Note in particular here the dolls house sized model of the pub in the far left hand side of the garden. There's the obligatory outside toilets.
In contrast to the experience of some recent posters, the pub opened bang on the dot at midday on my recent Sunday lunchtime visit. The real ale is Wadworth's 6X - served through a beer pump into a (clean) plastic jug, from which your pint is poured. Until recently, I gather that Olive used to bring the beer up directly from the cellar, but, reflecting her advancing years, a pump was installed to make life easier. The Wadworths 6X tasted fine and the pub is a CAMRA Good Beer Guide regular. It's listed in Part 2 of CAMRA's National Inventory of Unspoilt Interiors. The Caravan Club recently voted it their pub of the year.
There's a certain timelessness to pubs like this and it really does feel like a throwback to a gentler era and a much slower pace of life.
Unless you're arriving by barge, it's not the easiest pub in the world to get to or find, but do make the effort. I doubt that you'll be disappointed - this really is a gem.
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The 6x was in good nick when we had it on a lunchtime, topped up with the (clean) jug- the pub opened about 1215. An immaculate beer garden you can be watching the boats on the canal. Adjacent is a well kept camping field. Quite an unchanged gem with two public rooms and no unsightly extensions- not many like this. Extensive menu - Cheese, cheese or a cheese sandwich.
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This small two-bar pub on the banks of the canal is stuck in a 1920s timewarp - although it may have been modernised a bit as recently as 1955! Wooden settles in the bar, formica tables in the lounge. Wadworth's 6X 9shame its not a local beer) pulled from the cellar by handpump into a jug then into your glass.
If you like food, sound systems, television, fruit machines or even inside toilets then forget it! Just good beer, conversation and occasional folk music. It is impossible to sit in this pub for long before being drawn into the conversation.
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The Good Beer Guide says that the opening hours are 12-3; 7-11 (winter hours vary). Now, I wouldn't call October 3rd winter, and surely for pubs the winter season doesn't start until the clocks go back. Yet this lunchtime, having gone some distance out of my way to visit what is supposedly an unspoilt classic pub, the door was firmly shut at 12.50 on a Saturday, with no sign to indicate when it might be open. Very nice location, it must be said, but it seems the pub isn't interested in attracting customers.
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The Anchor took me ages to find it, I was welcomed by a beautiful beer garden in a lovely canelside setting... The pub itself, what a dump!!!! The beer was served out of a dirty plastic jug, and there were flies hanging from cobwebs and spiders crawling around.... A very tired unwelcoming pub, as a member of The campain for real ale, I am astonished it is so highly rated.... The staff didn't look to clean and the 6X was less than average..... 2/10
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A simple, old-fashioned canalside pub, it serves beer, cider, and if you are lucky 'real' music.
Pubs like this are national treasures.
My rating? 8. It's appeal is limited, but it is damn near perfect at what it does.
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Truly wonderful 6X in a gem of a pub that seems to have escaped national attention. Miles from anywhere (seemingly) but several other pubs round here are also very good - one of Britain's last wildernesses ?
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Ah, the Anchor...pleasant memories from 1985, drinking Wadworths 6X and numerous ciders!
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This unique pub is a little old cottage set in the middle of no where alongside a canelside. Farmland views in every direction, canel boats moored up at the end of the beer garden. A very simple unspoilt interior with high wooden settles around the fireplace. The landlady has to take a jug down into the cellar, fill it up, bring it back up and pour it into your glasses, everytime you order the only real ale, Wadworths 6X. Towpath walks in each direction from here are recommended. There is also a caravan and tent pitch area with basic facilities onsite.
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Excellant canalside local.
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