Madeley

Poolside Mornings and a Saved Inn

Geese and ducks work the edges of Madeley Pool most mornings, and on the kind of misty morning this corner of north-west Staffordshire specialises in, a Tripadvisor reviewer once called it "very atmospheric" — which is about right. The pool sits at the centre of the village, held by the dam that once carried Madeley Mill; the mill ground grain, then turned to cheese-making for a while, and is now apartments.

The Offley Arms stands right over the water. It's a Joule's Brewery taphouse now, pouring the brewery's own ales and craft lagers under a roof that's stood since the 16th century, the timber frame original despite a stint as an 18th-century coaching inn. It burned badly in 2018 and nearly went for housing until the village lobbied Joule's, twenty minutes away; they bought it seven days later, in October 2019. It reopened in 2021 under landlord and landlady Nicky and Mark, with log fires, a beer garden, and dogs welcome.

Madeley Heath Tables and Village Shops

The Old Swan, on Crewe Road at Madeley Heath, is the one locals rate highest — 4.7 out of 5 across 200-plus reviews, and top of Madeley's four restaurants. Sea bass and lamb shank sit on the menu alongside handmade 12-inch pizzas and a Saturday-and-Sunday buffet breakfast, with a gluten-free range and a commitment to local sourcing. It has its own enclosed garden, a pool table and darts. The Crewe Arms Hotel, at Madeley Heath, adds ten letting rooms, a function room and a games room, useful for Keele University, a mile down the road.

Shepleys on Newcastle Road still calls itself a "High Class Family Butchers," and Baa Hill Farm shop sells its own home-reared lamb, beef and pork alongside eggs and game. A NISA and a One Stop cover the everyday shopping.

Norman Stone and Elizabethan Timber

All Saints' Church, Grade I listed, keeps a Norman arcade in its north nave dating to the late 1100s, though most of what's standing was rebuilt in the 14th and 15th centuries, with the chancel redone again in 1872. The west tower, raised around 1400, carries gargoyles and crocketed pinnacles.

Older still is Madeley Old Hall, a black-and-white timber-framed Elizabethan house from the late 1500s, now run as a country house hotel. Someone carved a warning into the gable timber above the front door: "WALLK KNAVE. WHAT LOOKEST AT." It's still there to read.

Manor Roots and Country Walks

The Domesday surveyors recorded 2,160 acres of woodland at Madeley and valued the whole manor at thirty shillings, granted after 1066 to Robert de Tosny, whose descendants took the name de Stafford and held the place for the best part of five centuries.

For walkers, the Madeley and Onneley Circular runs five miles over Baa Hill and farmland; the Wheatsheaf at Onneley, which used to break up the walk nicely, closed as a pub in April 2025. A longer 10.7-mile loop heads north to Betley and Wrinehill. Buses run hourly to Crewe on the D&G route 85, stopping outside the Offley Arms; the A525 carries the traffic through, and the nearest trains run from Longport or Stoke-on-Trent, the village's station having shut in the 1950s.

Famous Names, Quiet Water

Gordon Banks had Madeley connections, and so did Lemmy Kilmister. Neither seems to have left much of a mark on the pool, where the geese carry on regardless of who grew up nearby.