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Detail Pages
Yew Tree Inn, Stoke-On-Trent
Cauldon
Postal town: Stoke-On-Trent
ST10 3EJ
Reviews (Current Rating Average: 9½ of 10) see review guidelines
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Gill Smith left this review about Yew Tree Inn
This was a very interesting experience and a pub you will never fully be able to say you have seen everything in it if you want to explore round the rooms. It is like entering a cross between a museum and an antique shop with a room with a couple of motorbikes some penny farthings and old bikes and ... .. well I can't describe everything in there. There is a bar and normal seating in the rooms and the beer is good too. We chose Hunters Devon Dreaming from those available. Spent most of my time just wandering round. Pianola, ancient radios, look up from the entrance door and you see some grandfather clocks on the next floor, displaying the correct time too!! There is also a charming pub dog who cannot read the notices saying do not feed the dog and looks at you - well your pork pie anyway - with the most appealing eyes. Great place.
On 9th September 2018
- rating: 9
[User has posted 1339 recommendations about 1222 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
lesley lewis left this review about Yew Tree Inn
We visited Yew Tree Inn yesterday having not been for 10 years as we had moved to Spain, It is lovely to be back in England and being able to visit places like this, Alan and his son greeted us as though we were family and chatted to us about his pianola s as we have just bought another one after sadly not being able to take our originals ones with us, we took our 20 year old grandson and his girlfriend who remembered all the things from last time we took him. We had lunch and drinks, 2p in the phonograph and will certainly go back as often as we can now we are home on British soil, also the dog was lovely (ate most of my sandwich though :) )
On 9th September 2013
- no rating submitted
[User has posted 1 recommendations about 1 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Will Larter left this review about Yew Tree Inn
We always come here on our annual minibus pub crawl, and are never disappointed. It's been in the same family for generations, and although the name over the door still says Alan East, it is now his son who is in charge; Alan's friendly face greeted us as ever from behind the bar, though. The beer range has been enhanced, with Burton Bridge Bitter as always, plus their Stairway to Heaven and a guest: Wadworth's Swordfish. There was also a mild as usual, from a small barrel stillaged on the floor behind the bar - I neglected to inquire its name. A new venture also in offering a real cider, Westons Scrumpy, rather than the supermarket plastic bottle of yesteryear. (Lager drinkers will still suffer a disappointment, though.) Prices are still firmly rooted in the last decade, if not last century: two pints came in at under £5.
My meat eating friends were drooling over the pork pies before we even got here, but were warned not to give any to the pub dog, no matter how appealingly she looked at them. The antiques collection is as fascinating as ever, the atmosphere friendly and welcoming, and we were treated to some tunes on the player piano before we had to hit the road. Now that the opening hours have been extended (all day Saturday and Sunday - see website (yes, a website!) for details) we may have to make a longer stay on future trips.
On 1st July 2013
- rating: 9
[User has posted 3746 recommendations about 3483 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Real Ale Ray left this review about Yew Tree Inn
It certainly was a day out to the local museum, especially with 40 of us getting off the coach. Alan made us all very welcome and served out the beers no bother. Rudgate Ruby Mild and Burton Bridge Bitter were the orders of the day. Also there was a great stack of pork pies, which soon got demolished and some of the group even took takeaway pies. Luckily for us, Billy from Notts Brewery was with us and knows Alan well, so Billy got permission to play one of the Pianolas near the bar. It's a piano that uses reels of paper wound around a drum and you use your feet pumping the pedals up and down to bring this wonderful machine to life. We had a good hour and a half here, so was good to look round. Alan even came out front and waved us goodbye as we were leaving. Will defo return here.
On 19th January 2013
- rating: 10
[User has posted 3382 recommendations about 3381 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Alfie Aleswigger left this review about Yew Tree Inn
Fantastic little boozer that has watched the development of the ugly works around it.
I don't think anything has been thrown out since the pub was built! It certainly hasn't been decorated since the arrival of electricity, as a sign on the wall proudly boasts that the place is "illuminated with "Eddison's electrical lighting" & warns that they shouldnt be lit by flame!
When we arrived, we had to wait a while to be served as the boss was busy out the back preparing a platter of sarnies, but with so much to look at, it really wasn't a problem.
Another surprise was the price! I thought I was given too much change, but it was correct. Even the prices are of another era! Excellent place.
On 23rd January 2011
- rating: 10
[User has posted 46 recommendations about 44 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Andy Ven left this review about Yew Tree Inn
I'd love to write a more meaningful review about this GBG pub. I rang ahead earlier in the week (01538 308348) to ask what their Saturday opening times were. The friendly female voice at the end of the phone said 11 - 4 then 6 - 3am. Crikey! I thought, where do they get their punters from?! We found it by car without any difficulty although we would have preferred to use the Churnett Valley / Moorland and City Railway, only to be thwarted when we were eventually told that the train gets to Cauldon Low and reverses, there is no passenger alightment (surely they have missed a trick here). So we arrived on the car park at 11.00am to find the pub wasn't open. We hung around for quarter of an hour an even phoned but got no answer and no sign of the doors opening. Sadly, we trudged off elsewhere to warm up. Another day maybe.
On 14th November 2010
- no rating submitted
[User has posted 244 recommendations about 240 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
John Bonser left this review about Yew Tree Inn
Visited in May 2010
Situated somewhat incongruously between an ugly massive cement works and some quarry factories, the inside of The Yew Tree really does look like a cross between the Antiques Roadshow and Steptoe's junkyard.
It's an old stone built building situated off the A523 and, with no hanging pub sign and seemingly no real effort to attract custom ( no sandwich boards etc and nothing really to encourage you in ), it's easy to miss, although the large yew tree outside in front of the pub helps.
Previous posters - especially that intrepid Captain Cook of the pub going world, Roger B - have more than adequately described the delights that await you once you cross the threshold into the pub. Myself, I was particularly impressed with the working polyphons, some fine Jacobean furniture and the collection of old radios. Note also the old penny farthing bicycle hidden behind a wooden settle.
In contrast to Roger however, I didn't find landlord and collector par excellence, Alan, particularly engaging or welcoming at all. Perhaps I got off on the wrong foot at the outset. My friendly and good-humoured opening remark of "Blimey, it's a bit difficult to find, isn't it ?!" was countered by a rather brusque and disagreeable "no" and then telling me that it's only 4 and a bit miles from Alton Towers and that people from all over the world had managed successfully to find this pub over the years. He didn't seem desperately welcoming to later arrivals either. Whilst in negative mode, I ought to mention the smell from the gents toilets, which really does need addressing.
For the record, in case anyone's interested, beers on were Burton Bridge Bitter, Rudgate Mild and Bass. The first two - both at a very reasonable £ 2.00p per pint - were in splendid form. The cash register, reminiscent of the one in Open All Hours, is yet another throwback to earlier days. On the bar were a few home made pork pies and a glass jar of pickled eggs.
The pub is listed in the 2010 CAMRA Good Beer Guide where the commentary says "there cannot be another pub like this". It also regularly appears in more general pub guides - eg The Good Pub Guide, and a 25 year certificate is on display. It also appears in the "Strangest Pubs in Britain" book.
Don't forget to sign the visitors book - situated by the entrance on an old school desk - when you finally come to leave.
This is most definitely a must visit pub and I would encourage you to visit and experience it for yourself when you possibly can, but you might be advised to refrain from telling Alan that it's difficult to find !
On 21st October 2010
- rating: 8
[User has posted 560 recommendations about 560 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Will Larter left this review about Yew Tree Inn
It's not as hard to find as the previous reviewer suggests: if travelling by car take the A52/A523 from Ashbourne, turn left in the village of Waterhouses. From Leek, take the A523 and turn right in Waterhouses. Keep going past the cement works until you come to the pub on the right hand side of the road, about a mile from the main road. You can get there by bus (Mon - Sat only): from Derby take the ONE (that's the name of the bus) at 25 minutes past each hour. Change in Ashbourne and catch the 108 at 13:15. Get off at Waterhouses and walk up the lane past the cement works (about 20 minutes). There's a 108 goes past the pub (bus stop just down the lane) at 15:00 if you are returning to Ashbourne and Derby, or at 15:45 if going on to Leek, Macclesfield and Stockport. Well worth the effort! Also, last time I was there (July 2010) the Burtonbridge bitter was only £2 a pint!
On 13th September 2010
- rating: 10
[User has posted 3746 recommendations about 3483 pubs]
Please Note: This review is over a year old.
Roger Button left this review about Yew Tree Inn
Not the easiest pub to find being tucked in between the surrounding industrial works (and the SatNav won’t help much) but persevere and you will encounter one of the most amazing if rather eccentric pub experiences going. The old farmhouse style building appears to be a typical rustic country pub from the outside but once through the door you enter a world that makes Antiques Roadshow look like a village jumble sale.
The pub has been in the family for decades and the current owner, the charismatic serial hoarder Alan, (who has been here for nearly 50 years himself and took the pub over from his mother) has spent the best part of his life scouring antique shops and car boot sales which has resulted in a pub that resembles an explosion at Steptoe & Sons junk yard. The pride of place goes to the 8 Polyphons (a sort of Victorian jukebox for the uninitiated) that have been restored to full working order (make sure you have lots of 2ps with you when you go). There are also working Pianolas, a huge collection of grandfather clocks, numerous commemorative jugs, plates and mugs, antique firearms, butter churners, air raid sirens, weighing machines, bottles, gas masks, faded newspaper cuttings, adverts, signs, 1970’s Pirelli calendars, radios, penny farthings, rocking horses, a 3000 year old Greek Vase and even a pair of Queen Victoria's stockings amongst the fantastic collection of assorted bric-a-brac. If you are lucky and interested enough (and it is hard not to be), you will more than likely find yourself being enthusiastically taken on a guided tour by Alan who will point out the rarities and oddities.
The furniture includes a stunning collection of antique and unusual pews/settles, many of them elaborately carved and one with a spectacular marble back. One room has a selection of 60’s style dimple topped tables. There are 3 functioning rooms with low ceilings and open fires and one with a dart board in case you forget that this is actually a fully functioning community pub. A fourth room to the left of the main entrance is cluttered up with bits and pieces that have yet to find an appropriate display spot. The beers may appear almost secondary in such a place but the 3 ales (Bass, Burton Bridge and a mild that I didn’t note) were well kept and, in line with the pub in general, the Carling dispenser was also a 1970’s relic, not out of place alongside the Watneys lampshades. The till is of course a shiny old pre-decimal “kerching” job with all the knobs and buttons and you still expect a pint to cost 5 shillings (sadly the prices, although reasonable, are a little more modern).
To add to the ambience, the music is also a throwback to the 30’s and 40’s and gives it a real authentic old time feel. Go there, enjoy the beers, the welcome, the surroundings and, after you have comtemplated on who does the dusting and how much is the insurance, sign the visitor’s book (it is on an antique school desk at the entrance). After a visit to this unique place where even the cobwebs are a highlight, other pubs will never appear to be the same again.
On 4th January 2010
- rating: 10
[User has posted 1239 recommendations about 1233 pubs]