The Armoury, Shrewsbury

A tractor shed sized place that seemed to cater mainly for families with pushchairs who were all eating. We however persevered, headed to the bar and bought 6 pints, all of which were in tip top condition. The screaming infants and smell of fried food did however drive us outside to drink, despite the wind and the rain. This place is OK, but there are better places in town with just as good a beer selection and less vocal children. Of the 10 or so places we drank in Shrewsbury, this was by far the most expensive, with a round coming in at over £20.

This rather remarkable riverside building was originally built back in 1807 in an area to the South East of the town as a storage facility for the arms of the volunteer corps of Shropshire. The building quickly fell into disuse and remained empty up until the First World War, when it was put to use housing displaced Belgian families. Then in 1919, a local company purchased the building, dismantled it, and rebuilt it at its current location, where it operated as a bakery for many years. In 1995 the building was restored with the upper floor let as office space whilst the Brunning and Price pub company decided to open the ground floor as the riverside pub we find today. The layout is fairly simple, with the front doors taking you into a small lobby from which you then access the huge, single room interior. Bare floorboards are covered in part with large rugs and there is plenty of exposed brickwork on show as well. The servery is roughly opposite the front door, in the middle of the back wall. There is standard seating throughout and the emphasis seemed to be quite firmly on food, which made finding somewhere to sit for just a drink a little awkward. There is a little bit of partitioning on the right hand side of the room, which looks quite nice in passing and the walls are covered with all sorts of interesting items including various photos, paintings, documents and maps. There are also some imposing, large bookcases dotted around as well. The weather had taken a turn for the worse by the time I arrived, so I didn’t get the chance to drink outside on one of the tables with views out over the river. For some time, I was convinced that there was a bird flying around the pub, as I occasionally glimpsed something darting past out of the corner of my eye, but after a while I realised that it was actually the bar staff sending their takings up a transparent vacuum tube. There was plenty of good beer on the bar, which may explain my confused state, with a choice of Brunning and Price Original, Salopian Shropshire Gold, Ironbridge Gold, Slater’s Premium, Hobson’s Mild, Three Tuns XXX (£3.50), Shire’s Ginger Bob and Brough’s Blonde. I gave the XXX a try and thought it was in pretty good shape and served up by a very friendly and eager barman. I really liked this interesting building which has a distinctly different history and feel to it than the traditional ale houses in the town centre. I think this place is probably best experienced with some food, but having said that, I enjoyed my visit and would certainly pop back for another look.

I had a bad feeling about the place when I was walking in and my intuition proved to be correct. Had a half of OBJ by Shires and it was horrid. I walked out without finishing it. I just thought the place was more of a restaurant rather than a pub. It seemed a little pretentious and aimed for the more up market clientele. I would not recommend for the drink aspect however, I can't comment on the food side.