The Wheatsheaf, Shrewsbury

First impressions of this pub weren’t helped as I walked up the almost deserted High Street and noticed a portly old bloke having a fag outside and wolf-whistling at two young girls on the other side of the road before pretending to be whistling a tune as soon as he saw me approaching from the opposite direction. Thankfully, he wasn’t very representative of the clientele, nor the general feel of this cosy High Street pub. The interior sees a single room layout with bare floorboards, half panelled walls and some rather fitting floral wallpaper. Well worn settles run around the perimeter of the room with standard chairs and low stools opposite. The walls have been decorated with plenty of black and white photos of local scenes and an old dresser had the day’s papers laid out across it. There is some effective partitioning to the left of the servery which helps to create the feel of a separate room, or at least a distinctly different space from the main bar area. A decent soundtrack played throughout my stay and rather surreally, this was accompanied by a couple of TV screens showing ‘Three Men and a Baby’. I had originally intended to visit the pub on Saturday evening, but found it was packed out with some live music on. Banks Bitter, Jennings Cumberland, Wychwood Hobgoblin and Marston’s EPA and Pedigree were available at the bar, whilst two other hand pumps had ‘Coming soon’ signs on them, including one for Ringwood Old Thumper. There was also a fairly decent looking wine list as well, but I went with the Cumberland, which was okay and served by a barmaid who barely broke her conversation with one of her regulars whilst serving me. This is a fairly nice traditional pub with just about enough going for it to make it worth adding to a crawl around town. In terms of other Marston’s pubs nearby, I marginally prefer this place to the attractive, but rather soulless Old Post Office and the shabby beer and service of the Loggerheads.

A lowish, oldish looking pub on the High Street, open plan but with a residual central wall that provides two smaller seating areas with benches tables, and chairs. Brown wooden furniture that matches predominates and the main area is bare boards, the smaller two carpeted giving a traditional feel overall. Décor is from a large collection of photos of old Shrewsbury, although the red and gold wallpaper might be considered lurid by some. It is labelled as a Banks’s house and the eight pumps were serving a selection from the Marstons stable including a couple from Ringwood and Hobgoblin, Banks’s Bitter but sadly no MILD. The quality was ok given that it’s a long term GBG entry and Cask Marque approved, but not outstanding, the service was rather functional. They have also caught JDW disease labelling a couple of clips with “Coming Next”. Lunchtime customers were mainly auld lads with some couples having lunch.

Nice little pub it’s just a shame about the live music, absolutely terrible, couldn’t hear ourselves think.

This is a Banks's pub but you'd hardly know it as they have guest beers on. A couple were from the same extended stable but there were a couple on from outside the tent. Very well kept beer as well. I called in at about 5.45 to find a whole bunch of women from a shop or office out on a birthday do. Very amusing they were too. It's OK in here.