Bramshall

One pub, three names

The pub on Stone Road has had three names since 2016. It started the decade as the Old Bramshall Inn, kept that name through a run as a project of actor Neil Morrissey, traded for a while as the Butcher's Arms, and reopened on 30 March 2026 as The Bramshall, with plans to serve food again. The building itself hasn't moved. It sits on the B5027 with ample parking, a large dining area, a separate bar, and two beer gardens.

Under Morrissey's ownership the pub brewed its own beers, Morrissey Blonde and a bitter called OBI, after the Old Bramshall Inn. "With our first pub, the Plume of Feathers at Barlaston, we developed a winning formula which we're delighted to bring to the Old Bramshall Inn," he said when it reopened in 2018. Regulars have praised the steak pie and the friendliness of the staff, and dogs are welcome in the bar area with, by one account, "a pint or two and maybe a packet of nuts with your mutt." On tap you'll find Draught Bass, Timothy Taylor Landlord, and a rotating cask from Uttoxeter Brewing Company. There's a function room and marquee space for around a hundred, and the pub has twice won CAMRA's Pub of the Season.

The pub that disappeared and the shops that stayed

It's the only pub left. The Robin Hood on Leigh Lane fell derelict and burned down on Christmas Day 2016 before being bulldozed. Locals say there's no market for two pubs in a village this size, and Bramshall hasn't tried since.

For food shopping there's Bramshall Farm Shop, inside a garden centre on Bramshall Road, selling seasonal fruit and veg, local cheeses, meats sourced daily from nearby farms and butchers, and Cottage Delight sauces and preserves. There's a self-serve orange juice machine — a small detail, but memorable. T.G. Sargeant & Sons, an old-fashioned family butcher, runs branches here and in Uttoxeter.

Village life and a churchmaker

Families are looked after too. The Parish Hall off Church Croft seats up to 120 and runs a Baby & Toddler group, a Bowling Club, Zumba and something called Cobra Fit, sometimes in the same week. A children's play area and trim trail sit next to it, and Bramshall Road Park gives you somewhere to walk a dog. Uttoxeter station is two miles away, and the 841 bus runs through the village roughly hourly, Monday to Saturday, toward Stafford one way and Uttoxeter the other.

The church, St Lawrence, was built in 1835 by Thomas Fradgley, who also designed Uttoxeter Town Hall and, earlier in his career, worked as Clerk of Works at Alton Towers — he's credited with the Talbot Hounds at its entrance tower and the chapel there. He married Clarissa Warner in this church in 1839. Inside, a stained-glass fragment carries the fourteenth-century arms of the de Stafforde family, and the tower holds three bells, two of which — the tenor and the treble — were cast around 1590 and 1500. In 1642 the church was damaged by a Scottish army billeted nearby after their surrender to the King's forces.

Seven households in Branselle

Bramshall appears in the Domesday Book as Branselle: seven households, three ploughlands, and a value to the lord of £1 a year. It has taken the place eight hundred years to get its pub's name to stop changing, and even that isn't settled yet.