Rugeley Pubs And Darts

Quite a few pubs in Rugeley have shut their doors for good since the old days when Rugeley was a mining town with hard working, hard living, hard drinking men, but it is not all bad news for the town.

The Comet on the Springfields was pulled down along with a petrol station and a haulage yard a couple of years ago to make room for a housing development. The Pear Tree Pub is another one that closed before Christmas for redevelopment. Eton Lodge Hotel has just been demolished, although there was talk at one time that they were going to save the original part of the historic building and rebuild it, turning it back into a smaller pub. Someone has told me that the Poplars in Handsacre is also closing along with the Talbot in Brereton.

Not only have pubs been knocked down, but others changed their use from a normal pub with darts into more of a restaurant type establishment. The Tree on the Horse Fair is such a pub that closed and then Graham re-opened it as the Station, until it was sold and became Pappas, which for a while was a restaurant only, although I don’t know what it is doing now.

One of my old favourites that has been lost to darts is The Plum Pudding which used to be an old fashioned, very rough pub, with darts, bikers and lots of fights until it was rebuilt as a gay pub and then later turned into a restaurant. Other pubs that I seem to remember playing darts in include the Shrewsbury Hotel before it was done up and The Yorkshireman used to have darts I’m sure, many, many years ago, before being turned into a restaurant. Some pubs though seem to have come full circle and are turning back to darts such as the Britannia which always used to have darts and pool, then for a number of years it became a restaurant called Kellys, but is back to being a pub with darts.

Some clubs that used to have regular darts teams have also closed. The club that many years ago had been the Brereton Royal British Legion on the Lichfield Road out of Rugeley was actually pulled down last year to build residential accommodation. Rugeley Comrades is another club that closed, although it was successfully re-opened as Libby's and it has of course been the centre of darts in Rugeley, at least for the men, until recently.

We have gained others such as the Plaza, which was the old cinema on the Horse Fair, at least as a drinking pub, as well as the restaurant on the Armitage road that was called the Farmhouse, but is now more of a pub since it was re-built by a big pub chain. Another pub that the town has gained is the Glassworks which has been built in the old Summerfield Supermarket premises. Other pubs have closed for a while, been done up and re-opened with no impact on the darts community such as the Cabin which closed, had a re-vamp and opened as the Vaults, but is closed at the moment. Many pubs have closed for a short time due to changing Landlords but have re-opened again fairly quickly, so on the whole it’s not all bad news for Rugeley drinkers.