Keele

A village pub with cells below

The cellar under the Sneyd Arms was once the village courthouse cells — the pub served as the courthouse in Victorian times, and the beer is now kept where the accused used to sit.

The Sneyd Arms is the only pub in Keele village itself — the Bush, a couple of miles off in Silverdale, doesn't count. It sits on Newcastle Road, CAMRA-listed and Cask Marque accredited, with a changing specials board alongside the steak and ale pie, root vegetable cottage pie and a Sunday carvery. Monday is Meal Deal night, two specials for £10; Tuesday is curry night; Wednesday is quiz; Thursday is pie night. Expect to spend £20–30 a head, on Adnams Southwold Bitter and three rotating guest ales.

Village welcome and Victorian faith

Dogs are welcome in the bar and get their own menu; there's a beer garden, a pool table, a dart board, and a function room named the Knights Templar. Accommodation is available above the pub, a short walk from the university. Keele itself has no shop or butcher — the university's retail up the road serves the campus, not the village.

The Church of St John the Baptist was rebuilt between 1868 and 1870, funded by Ralph Sneyd, and is Grade II* for the completeness of its Victorian interior rather than its exterior — the stained glass is by Clayton & Bell. A 1703 monument to Radulph Sneyd and the alabaster effigies of William Sneyd and his wife fill the north wall. A ring of six bells is still rung.

Ridge walks and the way in

Keele sits on a ridge, among the highest ground west of the Potteries, rising from about 120 metres at the parish edge to 180 in the village, amid hedgerows and mature trees. The Keele Woods Circular is an easy 2.1-mile loop from near Keele Hall, following Park Brook past several ponds into Springpool Wood. The university's own 625-acre grounds are open to walkers year-round, with trails leading to the arboretum's National Collection of more than 240 species and cultivars of flowering cherry.

Keele station closed to passengers in 1956; the nearest working one is Stoke-on-Trent, with a bus running every 10–15 minutes and taking about half an hour. The A53 runs past the village, and the M6 is close by at Junction 15.

Templars, Sneyds and a university

Henry II granted the Keele estate to the Knights Templar around 1168. After the order's suppression in 1308, the Crown handed it to the Knights Hospitaller in 1324. The Sneyds took over from the mid-1500s and held it until 1948, when the last Ralph Sneyd sold up to cover gambling debts and tax bills. Keele Hall was rebuilt for the family in the 1850s by Anthony Salvin, who also worked on Windsor Castle, reputedly to outdo the neighbouring Crewe Hall.

The university that took the estate's place opened in 1950 and became Keele University in 1962 — still the only one in the UK named after the village it stands in. As the local historian fredhughesblog put it, "the misfortune of the Sneyds, it may be said, has provided the good fortune for others."

A Russian grand duke at Keele Hall

Before that, the hall was rented out to Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich of Russia and his wife, Countess Sophie of Merenberg — Pushkin's granddaughter — sent to live quietly in Staffordshire from 1900 to 1910 after their marriage scandalised the Russian court.