A journey into Middle England – Part 2

Having left the Old Swan, a short walk back west towards the town centre of Atherstone brought us to the Hat & Beaver, its plain frontage brightly illuminated in the Autumn sunshine. While the name may seem whimsical, it reflects Atherstone’s long heritage of the hatting industry. Apparently at one time in the past it produced more hats than Luton, and was responsible for making Tommy Cooper’s fezzes. We had been warned about the possibility of encountering over-familiar dogs in this pub, but today none were in evidence, although there was a dog bowl in one corner. Atherstone seems to be a good place for dog-loving pubgoers, with several pubs either having dogs inside, or signs proclaiming they were “Dog Friendly”. In keeping with the exterior, the interior is fairly plain, with a public bar with a tiled floor at the front, an intermediate area with an alcove of seating at a higher level, and a lounge section with a wall bench at the rear.

The only cask ale was Bass, at a bargain price of £3.50 a pint, where most of the beer in the town was between £4.20 and £4.50. The pub had recently received a delivery of the new Bass merchandise, including pumpclips, bar runners, beermats and glasses with the legend “Trademark No. 1” on the rear, as shown in the photo above. As in the two earlier pubs with Bass, while you would have been happy to drink it all night, it didn’t quite scale the heights that it can be capable of. A nice touch was that the barman turned down the music in the area where we were sitting to help us hear our conversation, although in fact it was pretty tasteful anyway. As you might expect in a pub of this type, the racing was showing on the TV with the sound off.

We continued further west along Long Street back into the town centre. While you would not describe Atherstone as an upmarket place, there were relatively few boarded-up premises and a good number of independent shops, suggesting it isn’t doing too badly. Turning right, we headed up to the spacious Market Place, which gently slops uphill to the handsome St Mary’s Church with its distinctive octagonal tower. On this are two pubs that make rather more concessions to modern beer trends than most of the others in the town, and which appear to take turns to be included in the Good Beer Guide.

The first, on the right, was the Market Tavern Tap, which presumably was a long-established pub originally just called the Market Tavern. The door on the right leads into a passageway down the side giving access to a comfortable front lounge and a smaller snug at the rear. The lounge was by some way the busiest pub room of the day so far, and appeared to be a popular spot for the gentlefolk of Atherstone – and their dogs – to enjoy a teatime pint. There was a fire burning in the grate even though it was quite a warm afternoon. There were seven cask beers available, including Iron Pier Stout, Brew York Duality, Big Dipper Bitter and Proper Job.

Across the Market Place is the Angel Ale House, which again was presumably once just called the Angel. This also is a double-fronted pub, this time mco with the door at the extreme right. A few steps down give access to a spacious front bar with a tiled floor. There were a good number of customers, although not quite as many as the previous pub. This one was in the 2025 GBG, but has been replaced by the Market Tavern Tap for 2026. There were five cask beers on the bar, including Oakham Citra, Theakston Peculier IPA and Leatherbritches Mad Ruby and Hairy Helmet.

Numbers were thinning out now, but having spotted a handpump in the Wheatsheaf earlier on, two of us decided to call in on the way back to the station. This is a much plainer and more down-to-earth pub than the previous two, with a public bar area at the front, a couple of alcoves of seating in the middle, and a raised area with a pool table to the rear. The clientele were noticeably younger than any of the earlier pubs, but maybe this was just a function of the time having moved on from afternoon to early evening. On the bar were two handpumps, once with a reversed pumpclip for Greene King Yardbird, and the other serving Genevieve, a collaboration between Greene King and Thornbridge, which was actually pretty decent.

From here it was only a short walk back to the station, with the ultra-low underbridge having to be negotiated to reach the northbound platform. My journey back involved changing at Crewe rather than Stafford. The London North Western train on the first leg ran to time, but unfortunately the West Coast one for the final stretch was delayed 25 minutes, meaning that I did not get back to Stockport until just after 9 pm.

While Atherstone may not include any world classics of the pub world, it is an interesting and characterful town in its own right, and we were able to visit all of the cask-serving pubs in the town centre; there are three or four more that only have keg beers. This made for a very enjoyable day out and gives the opportunity to get a feel for what makes a place tick that you don’t get by just cherry-picking one or two from a beer guide. The front room of the Market Tavern Tap was probably my favourite pub space of the day, but I would also be more than happy to spend time in the Maid of the Mill and the Old Swan, and the Hat & Beaver is certainly not lacking in character. The only pub I wouldn’t really be too concerned about returning to was the Wheatsheaf.

See here for Part 1.