The Pyle Cock, Wolverhampton

set to become a nursery

This is a great Banks’s (Marston’s) pub which has a bit of a cottage look about it with nice etched windows and was built around 1865. The very traditional interior has a central corridor and three small rooms. The short corridor has a red tiled floor and a serving hatch in the left wall from the public bar. The three rooms consist of a public bar on the left, a snug (smoke room) on the right and a lounge in the back right of the building. The public bar has a small wood bar counter in the back right corner, a tiled floor, fixed brown leather bench seats across the front and left walls, a small flat screen TV (set to Heart FM on this visit) high up on the wall in the back left corner and some wood panelling and old boxing prints and photographs on the walls. The snug has a lovely Victorian cast fire place in the middle of the right wall with flower pattern tiles either side and a nice dark wood mantle and mirror above, burgundy fabric bench seating around all the other walls with a couple of snob screens near the door, busy patterned but predominantly red carpet, on the walls are various framed collections of old cigarette cards and cartoon holiday post cards. The comfy lounge has a dart board in a larger than normal full height cupboard against the front wall to the right of the door, an old organ against the right wall with a nice old Banks’s Ales mirror above, red patterned fabric bench seating along the left wall and in the back right corner, busy patterned carpet and various old prints on the walls with a couple of old plates higher up. Towards the back of the central corridor and on the way to the toilets there are some detailed and interesting posters showing all the beers that now come under the Marston’s (formerly Wolverhampton and Dudley breweries) stable. Regular ales are Banks’s Mild and Bitter with up to four changing guest beers from the Marston’s portfolio which includes Brakspear, Jennings, Ringwood and Wychwood breweries. On this occasion the guests were Banks’s Sunbeam, Wychwood Hobgoblin and Bah Humbug (Cask Marque). I tried all three of the guest beers and as usual found them to be in excellent condition in my opinion. Unfortunately this pub has missed out on the GBG in the last couple of years as it has had three landlords in three years, but all of them knew how to look after the beer which is essential in this wet led pub. A brilliant traditional locals pub and one of the best Banks’s pubs in Wolverhampton as far as I’m concerned. Not sure the place does any food but I imagine that if it does then it would be very basic pub grub. Good beer and conversation are the main ingredients for a visit to this pub. The number 59 bus passes the pub going in both directions to and from Wolverhampton bus station. I try to visit this place and the Vine at the opposite end of Wednesfield high street whenever I am in the area and have time for a couple of drinks. Look out for the friendly but huge pub dog!