The Britannia, Dudley

Batham's pub. Three rooms aside from the small bar area to the left as you enter – a cosy red lounge with a fire off right, a posh Edwardian-style green coloured side room and a dull parlour. Just the Bitter on and, whilst decent, was well-below the quality I know this can be (NBSS 3) which seems quite peculiar given the proximity of the Jolly Crispin; you’d assume there’d be high standards here because of it but instead it felt like they’d given up trying to compete. Friendly barmaid and locals helped make up for the deficiencies a little, though it was noticeably quieter than some of the nearby pubs we did that evening. Cobs available. Worth a look-in if nearby but not a special visit if the cask output on my visit is indicative. Bathams have set high standards in the past, so we all left slightly deflated.

Spotting a Batham's house was enough to make me jump of the bus at the next stop and walk back to have a look. The main bar and seating area at the front were busy late on a Saturday afternoon, with a fine community atmosphere immediately apparent. With no spare seats there, I found a perch in the very comfortable rear lounge (with its renowned wall-mounted pumps and heritage cash register). Also has a basic parlour off to one side for the darts, plus a patio beer garden at the back (but it was hardly the weather for that). Of course, it was only the Delph Brewery Bitter and Mild (£2.35) on tap, but that was exactly what I was after, and the unexpected stop here quite made my day.

On the other side of the road and a short stroll down from The Jolly Crispin, is The Britannia Inn, a small Bathams pub, still seemingly better known as Sally’s, named after a legendary long serving former landlady, Sally Perry, who was, apparently at the helm here from 1942 to 1991. Batham’s acquired the pub in 1997. The small curved bar counter is on the left hand side as you come in and has a Bathams tiled bar back and large mirror. This bar serves a small area in front and a much larger area on the right hand side of the door, which features fixed padded seating, red velour bar stools and walls decorated with old black and white photos of the vicinity. It’s a comfortable, carpeted lounge style area. High up on a wall in one corner is an old style push button TV – the type of set that will probably crop up on The Antiques Roadshow before too very long. The highlight of the interior is undoubtedly Sally’s Bar, a small room at the back, off the main bar area, which features an old cash register and handpumps, fitted into an old sideboard and mounted into the wall. There’s no actual bar counter as such here, just drip trays. This room has much wood panelling, fixed padded seating and a pleasing lightish green colour scheme which extends to the carpet. There’s a real granny’s living room feel to this room, which is enhanced by plenty old style circular- framed black and white photos, many of which feature Sally herself and other members of her family. An old photo of a charabanc outside the pub full of passengers ( presumably pub customers going on an outing ) particularly caught the eye. This is a charming and delightful room, very much evocative of an earlier era. The pub is listed in CAMRA’s National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors because of the surviving original features here. In this room is a serving hatch to the bar servery, but this was not in use on my late September visit. A notice on the wall advised that Sally’s Bar would now open on a Saturday evening, not Friday evening, due to staff shortages. Even when there is no service directly in this room, based on my visit, this is still a popular well patronised room where the friendly locals meet up and put the world to rights, one of whom told me that table service is still offered here when the room is staffed and the wall mounted handpumps are brought into use. An outside garden at the rear offers additional seating space in good weather. Here also is a disused former brewhouse. The Britannia Inn is a Batham’s pub offering Bitter and Mild ( £ 2.55p and £ 2.30p respectively on my visit ). The Mild had just run out, but the Bitter was in decent nick. The pub is a CAMRA Good Beer Guide regular. It’s a splendid community local and, yes, I know it’s a cliché, but it’s the type of place where you enter as a stranger and leave as a friend, although, like me, you may well struggle at times to understand the Black Country dialect. This is another Black Country pub well worth making the effort to seek out ( it’s on a main road and bus route ) and, when combined with The Jolly Crispin just up the road, makes a pretty good double header