The Shakespeare Inn, Dudley

Visited September 2009 Small, basic, three - roomed pub situated in Stafford Street, just off the High Street. The pub features in CAMRA's National Inventory of Unspoilt Interiors and the interior is certainly reminiscent of an earlier ( and better ?) age of pub going. As you enter, the tap room ( note the etched windows ) is on your left. This is a small simple room with wood pannelling and fixed seating around the walls. This room is where the bar counter is located. There's a small TV in the corner, which, on my early Saturday evening visit, was showing one of these typically mundane family quiz shows and being watched by hardly anyone as the pub was virtually deserted. Further back, accessed via the central corridor, is the games room, featuring a dartboard and fixed seating. There's a fine collection of darts trophies, both in here and the tap room, and I got the impression that the dartboard was probably the focal part of the pub. Service to the games room is provided via a hatch to the main bar. Across the way is the smoke room ( again notice the etched windows ), serviced through a hatch in the corridor.. There's the seemingly obligatory outside toilets in a back yard at the end of the corridor. An interesting framed picture in the tap room records the history of the pub and tells us that it was first recorded as an alehouse in the 1820's. It is now the only pub left on Stafford Street out of an original 13. It's a Banks pub, but neither the Original nor the Bitter - dispensed by electric pump, not handpump incidentally - were available on my early evening visit. But a nice pint of Theakston's Mild - £ 2.16p - was enjoyed. This is a basic, simple pub that won't appeal to everybody - and I am disappointed to report that it was depressingly devoid of custom when I dropped in - but if you want to see what "Unspoilt by Progress" ( as the Banks' slogan goes ) really means, then do call in.