Breweries from outside the Midlands region are included as, particularly nowadays, beers from other parts of the country are sold across the counters in the Midlands. The section is growing as more images are obtained - not all relevant to the area but, hey, I love beer and it's great fun.

Statto Corner 130 Pages 145,885 Words 190 Pubs Featured 482 Pub Photographs 78 Breweries Featured 51 Brewery Photographs 96 Other Photographs 115 Inn Signs 109 Beer Labels 114 Pumpclips 22 Maps 15 Building Plans

Pubs of Brownhills and Ogley Hay Staffordshire

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Licensees of the Boat Inn 1860 - Charles Hilton 1880 - George Pointon 1921 - John Stack 1928 - James Yates 1936 - John William Edmonds 1940 - John William Edmonds

This pub is located on the north side of the A461 dual carriageway to the south-west of Muckley Corner. It has been a popular watering hole on the Walsall to Lichfield Road for many a year. However, although the ancient highway has brought generations of tired travellers through the front door, the road was not the sole reason for the construction of a pub in this location. Today, drivers whizzing along the busy dual carriageway past the Boat Inn must wonder why the pub has such a name - after all, there isn't a drop of water in sight. However, the pub once stood alongside the Lichfield Canal, a short inland waterway measuring just over seven miles constructed in the late 18th century in order to connect the Wyrley and Essington Canal at Ogley Junction to the Coventry Canal at Huddlesford Junction. The canal closed in the 1950's and much of the route has been infilled. Trudge down the side of the Boat Inn and you will end up in the ditch that was once the canal. From here it is possible to see the extensive stabling blocks behind the pub - an indication of how busy the boat trade must have been here. The incentive for the canal was to transport the coal reserves of the Brownhills area to other parts of the country. Officially opened on May 8th 1797, water supply was a problem for the Lichfield Canal in the early years, particularly at Ogley Locks to the west of the Boat Inn. This was later solved with the construction of Norton Pool, a large reservoir that is today known as Chasewater. Not that this solution was without its problems - the dam burst in 1799 and caused quite a disaster to nearby infrastructure and the local economy. This is the reason for the very solid dam that can now be found at Chasewater.

The image below provides a glimpse of how the pub looked in the early years of the 20th century. In terms of isolated location, things are pretty much the same today. The pub and the cottages beyond are still there in a redundant section of the main road having been superseded by the new dual carriageway. The hedgerow to the left in the hollow marks the point where Pouk Lane heads off towards the hamlet of Hilton. This probably marks the division between Springhill and Summerhill. The stretch of road between the Boat Inn and Muckley Corner has traditionally been more developed with rows of cottages erected for miners and agricultural labourers. There was also a police station at Muckley Corner, the latter being the junction with the famous Watling Street.

I believe that my great great grandparents were licensees of the Boat Inn in the late 1850's or early 1860's - at least it says so in a trade directory of the time and so did my late Uncle Tom Langley who used to broadcast on regional BBC as Tom, the old Blackcountryman. To go back to the beginning.... my great great grandmother was named Caroline Jackson of Cock Hill Farm, Allen End, Middleton, born 1821. She "ran away", whatever, and gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, Fanny, [Frances Ann Jackson] in 1843 in 62 Great Hampton Row Birmingham in 1843. She was found by her father, farmer John Jackson, brought back to Middleton and married off to her cousin Joseph Langley in 1850. Joseph was set up as a licensed victualler in the Leopard Inn in Sandhills, further down the Walsall Road from the Boat Inn [I believe that still exists]. Some time later they were in the Boat Inn, and he was also an agricultural labourer, perhaps the anonymous one you mention. By 1881 they were in Balls Lane houses. Their grandson, Fanny's son, George Henry Jackson [by now known as Langley] married Mary Jane Baker, the daughter of James Baker who kept the Cottage Spring [on the site of the Cottage of Content] in Queen Street, Chasetown. James Baker owned quite a lot of property in Chasetown; Baker Street was named after him. At some stage George Henry and Mary Jane Langley kept another of James Baker's pubs in Queens Street [could have been named the Queen's Head]. Others of James Baker's children married into the Hadley family and kept pubs all over the place. This is a rough account - but is just to say that my ancestors kept the Boat Inn around 1860 and possibly for some years before that. I think on the 1861 census they are down as living in Rowley's Cottages, just near the Boat Inn - but the trade directory gives Joseph Langley as the licensed victualler at the Boat Inn at around that time. On the 1861 census Fanny [aged 19] was in Mousetrap Hall near Aldridge, but where and what that was is a mystery. [I am living in Australia so checking on things is a bit difficult]. Mary Werkhoven, Australia 19th May 2007

In this photograph the name of Blencowe can be seen on the front of the Boat Inn. Blencowe's Brewery was founded in the mid-19th century by William Blencowe at Brackley in Northamptonshire. By 1894 the business was registered as William Blencowe and Co.Ltd; Brewers and Spirit Merchants. At some stage an amalgamation or buyout occurred and another brewery was based at Cannock. That site, along with 32 tied houses, was acquired by the Wolverhampton-based William Butler & Co.Ltd. in 1925. When the pub first opened for the canal trade, it was almost certainly a homebrew house though the transportation of beers produced elsewhere would have found their way here via the canal network. Both born a few miles to the east in Shenstone, Charles and Sarah Hilton were running the Boat Inn during the early 1860's. They lived on the premises with their two sons Robert and Charles. The fact that they employed two servants, Elizabeth Stringer and Emma Patrick, suggests that it was a busy hostelry.

Born in 1827, Charles Hilton was the son of a baker but following his marriage farmed some 48 acres at Wood End. A later publican of the Boat Inn combined farming with his duties as a victualler. George Pointon kept the pub with his wife Jane during the early 1880's but was also recorded as a farm labourer, suggesting perhaps that trade had declined at the Boat Inn. George grew up in a pub as his father Thomas was both a butcher and innkeeper in the Staffordshire village of Ranton. The name of George Yates can be seen above the door in the first photograph when the pub was selling Highgate ales. The Yates family were involved in a number of pubs in the neighbourhood. The freehold of the Boat Inn was offered for sale at auction in March 1954 following the death of James Machin Yates. The auction was held at the pub by Messrs. Winterton & Sons of Lichfield. The sale notice advised potential bidders that the pub was generating a gross annual income of £1,280.0s.0d. The sale notice described the accommodation of the Boat Inn that included a club room with oak block floor and brick fireplace. The smoke room featured a quarry tiled floor, two modern fireplaces and a bar counter framed and panelled with mahogany top. The public bar also featured a quarry tiled floor, wood framed wall benching and a fitted bar and counter. There was also an outdoor department with a hatch servery.
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