A History of The Staffordshire Knot
It is thought that the Staffordshire Knot was first established as a beer house back in the 1830s when it was being run by blacksmith Edward Wooley.
By 1841 Edward had moved to Alstonfield and his son John was shoeing horses in his place in Sheen. Whether he was also serving beer is unclear as there is no reference to this in the 1841 census…
But by 1851 his wife, or in reality his widow, Elizabeth is shown as being a victualler (a person who is licensed to sell alcohol)
What the census doesn’t tell us is that she was also carrying on John’s work as a blacksmith and that the pub had by now acquired a name. Possibly just a result of advertising her trade, White’s directory of the same year informs us that she was carrying out her victualling from the Horseshoe.
Elizabeth was still there two decades later….
….but by 1880 the pub had a new landlord and a new name.
By 1891 a Woolley had returned. John and Elizabeth’s daughter Sarah had married Matthew
Beetham and the 1891 census shows him there with their own daughter, also called Elizabeth.
Sarah dies in 1898 but the census return for 1901 shows Matthew still in residence.
The date of this rather grainy photograph of the Staffordshire Knot but it is most likely to date
from around the time of Matthew Beetham’s tenure.
Matthew died in 1902 and by 1911 the Staffordshire Knot was being run by a Herbert Birch….
He was still in residence the following year.
In the 1930s Ralph Gilman was at the pub’s helm…
Coincidentally, Ralph’s daughter Frances went on to marry Herbert Birch’s son which resulted in Harold returning to his childhood home after three decades.
Three decades later, in the 1970s, the pub changed its name for a while to Ye Olde Spinning Wheel before the change was reversed.
It remained as the Staffordshire Knot until it closed.
Since the closure of the public house several planning applications requesting permission to change the use to a combination of residential and/or holiday accommodation. This has been repeatedly refused on the grounds that there is insufficient evidence to suggest that the pub is no longer required, can no longer be viable or that the facilities would be reasonably available elsewhere in the local area.
Hopefully the future promises a more positive new chapter for a once very popular and successful village pub!
The Staffordshire Knot Community Pub Committee would like to express their gratitude to Stewart Marsh from www.bygoneboozers.co.uk for helping provide a comprehensive history of the Staffordshire Knot