The Railwaymans Arms, Bridgnorth

Official site of The Railwaymans Arms - www.svr.co.uk

Official site of The Railwaymans Arms - www.svr.co.uk

This has been more than well described below. It's much more a railway pub than the King & Castle at the other end of the line. It consists of two areas, the one with the bar and an area behind that includes a door leading to the platform. The pub toilets are the platform ones although they are close. I was here before midday on a Friday and it wasn't that busy. It appeared that just one person was a local rather than being there for the trains. There are ten hand pumps which had two ciders. The 8 beers consisted of Hobson's Mild, Best & Town Crier, Batham's Best, Robinson's Trooper, Clun Pale Ale, Purple Moose Snowdonia Ale and Kelham Island Kingston. I tried the Clun Pale Ale (£3.20), Town Crier (£3.00) and Kingston (£3.20). The Clun was a bit suspect, possibly due to the hot weather but the other two were excellent. I wondered how much trade this one gets when the trains aren't running as it is actually right on the edge of the upper town. Nevertheless, it's well worth a visit and coming up by train then returning to the King & Castle is highly recommended but it's probably best to avoid weekends and school holidays.

I was looking forward to coming here, and I was glad I did because this is a cracking place for a pub if you have any affinity for railways. Add to that the ten hand pumps on the bar, with a real cider and nine real ales (though there was a problem with one of the hand pumps, so only eight available). Sadly, the beer I went for, Hobsons Champion Mild 3.2% was rather limp and lifeless. The same thing had happened when I had the same beer in Coalbrookdale the previous day, so either there's a problem with this beer or people in Shropshire are not drinking as much MILD as they should. Anyway, I consoled myself by enjoying the real fire, the quiet of a pub with no background music and looking around at the railway memorabilia, which mostly seemed to consist of name plates from defunct stations and signal boxes, while promising myself a return visit one day, by train from Kidderminster (if time and funds allow).