The Stile, Whitmore Reans, Wolverhampton

Official site of The Stile - www.thestileinn.co.uk

Official site of The Stile - www.thestileinn.co.uk

A fantastic Example of an Edwardian estate pub! It is detached, with a patio area at the back overlooking the bowling green. The pub has a slight touch of the Gothics, being predominantly in red brick. the windows and porch are pedimented and there is an oriel window on the corner. The interior has three rooms and a small area from where you order food. There is an entrance corridor and off to the left is the bar room. It is in white and coffee, with a wood floor, a little fireplace and red perimeter seating, It has a large TV, showing sport. The room to the right is for eating - the prices are very cheap and the portions large. It is in green and red, with red lino. It is populated by old tables and has a few prints on the walls. The TV wasn't on and there is a dart board. There is a third room round to the left, a quiet room it felt, also in green and red, set up with menus (though stll pubby rather than foody) and having lots of prints and photos on the walls. The service was friendly and the place busy with locals. The music general and at a decent level. Beer; usual tap stuff with Banks's Bitter, MILD (very good), Sunbeam and a decent Brough's Bitter. A class local's pub, and by far the best around. As Quinno says, worth a walk out.

A back street Banks's pub a bit north of the city centre and slightly hard to find. It is basically two rooms, a bar and sitting room but has an interesting layout. To the left on entering is the main bar with traditional pub furnishings, the other door in the entrance vestibule is blocked off so to reach the other room means a traipse through the bar and a service corridor. Also in the front bar is a small shrine to Wolves, we are quite close to the ground, some disco lights and a good collection of trophies. Pump clip décor with clips from the Marstons stable but not exclusively so. The service corridor goes to the other front room which is a little spartan but has the essential screens and machines, also reached from the corridor is an immaculate lawn in the rear garden.

Victorian backstreet corner local five minutes from Molineux, home of Wolverhampton Wanderers. Three ales available on my visit – Banks Mild and Bitter, plus a Wychwood brew of some sort. Both the Banks’ were good and came in at a wallet-happy £2.22. Old clips above the attest to some interesting guest ales having come through the pumps previously The interior is straight out of the mid-70’s, you could film a scene for Ashes to Ashes in here – red leather banquette seating, stripped wood floor etc. Two bars lead off the corridor which terminates in the back room - look out for darts and bar billiards in one of the rooms. I spent the majority of my stay in the front room which had a nice old fireplace (looks like it gets used, too). Nice wooden bar, curved at both ends, complementing a pretty bar back. It’s getting a little worn in places though. Piped music and TV showing cricket during my visit. Basic pub grub is offered, reasonably priced and cobs were behind the bar. Comedy and disco nights advertised. Newspapers available. An interesting sight was the large old school weigh-yourself scales in the gents. Pub backs onto a bowling green, viewed from the corridor as you head to the facilities. A great example of a local community boozer and well-worth the walk out of the town centre to sample it if you have the time.

This is a brilliant Victorian street corner Banks’s pub located in the middle of an inner city housing estate, not far from the Molineux football ground. It has three small rooms all accessed from a central corridor, on the left there is a public bar which has a bar counter along the back wall, red leather bench seats opposite and on the right of the room, near to the door is a large cast iron fireplace with decorative tiles and a large flat screen TV above. On the right of the corridor there is a larger lounge which has a cast iron fireplace with tiles in the right hand wall and a dartboard above, a TV in the back right hand corner, a grandfather clock in the back left hand corner and a football table. The lounge has leather seats and is decorated with various large maps on the walls. At the end of the corridor to the left behind the public bar, there is a very small sports room which has red fabric bench seats around the outside and a pool table squeezed in to the middle, the walls are decorated with sporting pictures and memorabilia. At the rear of the pub is a decked area with a further football table, a red telephone box and large bowling green. There has been a pub on this site since 1853 when opposite was just farmers fields accessed by a single stile, hence the name. The current building dates from 1900 but a former stable block at the back, next to the bowling green remains from the original building. Regular ales are Banks’s Mild and Bitter with two changing guest beers from the Marston range such as Brakspear, Jennings, Ringwood or Wychwood beers. On this occasion they were Jennings Cocker Hoop and Ringwood Old Thumper. All were in good condition in my opinion and the pub has a good reputation locally, recently wining an award from the Wolverhampton branch of CAMRA for its consistently good Mild. Also worth a mention is the lovely Banks’s Dark Mild (on keg, unfortunately) which is very hard to find, even in the town where it is brewed! A great traditional pub with character and one of the best pints of Banks’s you will find. It is a little outside the city centre but it’s worth the short walk. Due to its handy proximity to the Wolves ground it gets very busy on match day with people often spilling out on to the street. I shall continue to visit as often as possible.