Few pubs have changed less during the twentieth century than the Anchor at High Offley. It is one of only two hundred pubs, and the only one in Staffordshire, to be included in CAMRA's Inventory of intact or little altered heritage pubs
Built in the early nineteenth century to serve travellers on the Shropshire Union Canal, the Anchor has been run by the same family since 1870. Lillian Pascall kept the pub for nearly seventy years and steered it through troubled waters following the Second World War when the canals declined and trade virtually disappeared.
Lillian's grandson Graham Cliff bought the Anchor from Greenall Whitley in the 1960s, but for the next five years he continued working five days a week in Birmingham, bringing casks of Ansells Bitter back in his car for weekends.
By this time canal holidays had become popular and from May 1975 the Anchor opened daily (see From the Archives pages).
Sadly, Graham Cliff died suddenly in July 1986 at the age of 52. His widow Olive and daughter Elaine have kept the pub since then. Thankfully little has changed at the Anchor and the two small front rooms are still as peaceful as ever, with roaring log fires in the winter.
Thc high-backed settles are known to be over a hundred years old and the pub appropriately features some traditional canal artwork, brightly coloured with castles and roses.
Although handpumps are sometimes used, the Wadworths 6X is often drawn straight from a cask in the cellar and brought up the steps in a jug. Marstons Pedigree is also sold during the summer,
The Anchor is open every lunchtime and evening during the busier summer months when the customers are a happy mixture of
regulars, holidaymakers, ramblers and cyclists. Things are much quieter in the winter, during which the pub is only open at weekends.
The Anchor is next to canal bridge number 42, but is not so easily reached by road. From Woodseaves take the High Offley Road then turn left soon after High Offley church. The pub is at Ordnance Survey grid reference 775256.
The Pub of the Year certificate will be presented to Olive Cliff at about 10pm on Thursday 27th April. Since 1976 Stafford & Stone and Wolverhampton CAMRA Branches have met at the Anchor on a Sunday lunchtime before Christmas, and so 17th December 2000 is pencilled in our diaries for the twenty-fifth such gathering.
Six pages of photographs of the Anchor are featured in "Heritage Pubs of Great Britain", recently published by CAMRA Books at £16.99.