Canal-side South Staffordshire
Swindon
A small village where two traditional pubs, a Victorian church and the surviving trace of a long ironworking story sit beside canal and former railway routes.
- Best for
- Canal walks, pub character and industrial history
- Give it
- A relaxed half day, or longer with a nearby park
- Don't miss
- The towpath corridor beside Smestow Brook
Photo: Roger D Kidd · CC BY-SA 2.0 · cropped
The Fox verdict
A village shaped by iron, ale and water
Swindon rewards an unhurried visit: follow the canal corridor, read the forge story in its one surviving building and choose between two traditional locals.
The appeal is not a polished attraction circuit but a close-knit set of contrasts. A Victorian church and community cricket ground sit near the former Swin Forge site, while woodland, old railway and towpath routes open out towards larger parks and canal landmarks.
Where to go
Places in Swindon
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesHimley and Swindon Canal Trail
A 4.6-mile circuit combining the old South Staffordshire Railway line, woodland, Wom Brook and the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal towpath.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 2 to 2.5 hours
- Locality
- canal and former railway corridor through Swindon
Baggeridge Country Park
A former colliery transformed into a nature and recreation area with lakes, woodland and walking trails.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 2 hours
- Locality
- near Swindon
Himley Hall and Park
An 18th-century mansion in 180 acres of Capability Brown-landscaped public parkland, with events and afternoon teas.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 2 hours
- Locality
- Himley
- Access
- Check the official site for current hall access and events.
Food & drink
2 places
The Green Man
A traditional High Street pub with home-cooked dishes, three changing real ales, a real fire and a beerhouse history reaching back to 1830.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- High Street, Swindon
- Access
- Cash only according to the supplied research; check current service before travel.
The Old Bush
A traditional local for fresh cobs, roasts, real ale, pub games and live music, with a garden and function room.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 75 minutes
- Locality
- High Street, Swindon
- Access
- Check current food and event service before travel.
History & heritage
3 placesSt John's Church
A small 1854 stone-and-timber church with no tower or spire, memorial windows and two war graves in its closed churchyard.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 35 minutes
- Locality
- Church Road, Swindon
- Access
- Check the church site for visitor access before travelling.
Swindon Community Centre
The only surviving building from Swin Forge, the former works canteen reopened as the village community centre in 1981.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 40 minutes
- Locality
- Swindon
- Access
- Check the parish council before planning interior access.
The Bratch Locks
A historic staircase lock system engineered by James Brindley in 1772, with bridges, a toll house and a lock keeper's cottage.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 75 minutes
- Locality
- Wombourne
Things to do
1 placeSwindon Cricket Club
The village's South Staffordshire County League club, playing from its pavilion beside the community centre.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- by Swindon Community Centre
- Access
- Check the club site for fixtures and visitor access.
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Three ways to explore Swindon
Signature outings
Meet the 1830 beerhouse
The Green Man grew from a butcher's shop beerhouse and still pairs changing real ales with home-cooked pub food.
Find the village faces
St John's memorial windows recall its architect James Perry, first vicar James Raven and Bishop Lonsdale.
Study Brindley's locks
The Bratch brings a 1772 lock system together with bridges, a toll house and a lock keeper's cottage.
The village story
Swindon Village Guide
Two surviving pubs, a close canal corridor and the long afterlife of Swin Forge give this South Staffordshire village its character.
The Beerhouse That Kept Its Character
The Green Man, on the High Street, still has a cash point built into the bar because the pub doesn't take credit cards. It has been serving drink under one name or another since 1830, when Jeremiah Hobson converted a room of his butcher's shop into a beerhouse under the new Beer House Act. By 1851 he'd rebuilt across the lane and taken on five lodgers; the pub gained full Inn status not long after.
Daily specials run to about £6, pudding included: belly pork, pies, faggots and peas, steak and kidney pie, a vegetarian suet pudding, thick sandwiches cut from crusty bread. Sunday roasts run twelve until two; everything else is twelve until two and six until eight, Monday to Saturday. Three real ales rotate through, kept by a real fire refurbished in 2023. One Tripadvisor reviewer titled their write-up "Time-warp village boozer with great quality everything" — plain decor, stark tables, a pub still mostly frequented by locals. Dogs get water dishes and gravy bones at the bar. It's co-owned by Patrick Harley, leader of South Staffordshire District Council, who has said it gives him somewhere to feel normal away from council business.
The Other Survivor and the Waterside Route
The survivor further along is the Old Bush — a reviewer called the Green Man the last of the original three pubs the village used to have, which makes the Old Bush the other one. Fresh cobs, Sunday roasts from midday until three, and a Saturday-night takeaway curry regulars single out for the lamb. Wychwood Hobgoblin Gold and Enville Ale sit alongside a rotating guest, with darts on weeknights, cribbage on Mondays, and live music in the lounge on Sunday afternoons. It holds a food hygiene rating of five.
Behind both pubs, the Smestow Brook runs alongside the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal so closely that in places only the towpath separates them. The Himley and Swindon Canal Trail follows this corridor for 4.6 miles, tracing the old South Staffordshire Railway line before joining the towpath and returning via Hinksford Lane — two to two and a half hours, woodland then water. The dismantled Wombourne Branch Line, closed in 1932, runs an almost parallel route for anyone who'd rather cycle.
Church Windows and Three Centuries of Iron
St John's Church, on Church Road, is Victorian — built in 1854, small, stone and timber, no tower or spire. Its windows commemorate architect James Perry, shown alongside Solomon and the Queen of Sheba; first vicar James Raven; and Bishop Lonsdale of Lichfield. The churchyard holds two war graves and stopped taking burials in 2007.
What explains most of the rest is Swin Forge. It started as a fulling mill under Halesowen Abbey, became a corn mill, then was converted to a finery forge sometime in the 1620s — the beginning of roughly 350 years of continuous ironworking on the same stretch of canal, through the Foleys, the Homfrays, the Thorneycrofts and finally the Baldwins, whose company was nationalised into British Steel, which closed the works in 1976. The site was demolished in the early 1980s and became the Swin Forge Way and Baldwin Way housing estates. Only the old canteen survived, reopening in 1981 as the village community centre — all that remains today.
Neighbourhood Spirit After the Forge
Swindon Cricket Club plays in the South Staffordshire County League from its pavilion by that same community centre, and the two together are what the district council credits with keeping the village's neighbourhood spirit going. From here it's a short run by bike or canal path to Baggeridge Country Park, a former colliery turned lakes and woodland, or to Himley Hall's Capability Brown parkland. Buses on Route 16 connect to Wolverhampton, Stourbridge and Wombourne, and Dudley is six miles east if both pubs are full.
On a quiet weeknight the loudest thing in Swindon is probably the cribbage at the Old Bush, or a gravy bone hitting a dog bowl at the Green Man.
Stay around Staffordshire
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around Staffordshire, linked directly to their property pages.
Cheddleton
Greenways House - Parking, Pool Table and Garden!
- Sleeps 10
- 4 bedrooms
Cheddleton
Lee House Cottage + Annexe
- Sleeps 19
- 8 bedrooms
Leek
Silkwood House | Boutique 4 Bed nr. Peak District
- Sleeps 8
- 4 bedrooms
Stoke-on-Trent
Heather's House
- Sleeps 6
- 2 bedrooms
A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Photography credits & licences
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- File:The Green Man in Swindon, Staffordshire - geograph.org.uk - 6665477.jpg — photograph by Roger D Kidd; The Green Man in Swindon, Staffordshire by Roger D Kidd. Source record on Wikimedia Commons. Declared source image. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0. File changes: Downloaded from Wikimedia Commons, resized to a maximum 1920px edge and encoded as an optimised JPEG. Display changes: Displayed with responsive CSS cropping.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- The Green Man — ratings.food.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- The Old Bush — ratings.food.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- St John's Church — himleyandswindonchurches.org other published source
- Himley and Swindon Canal Trail — sstaffs.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- Swindon Community Centre — swindon-pc.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- Swindon Cricket Club — swindoncc.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Baggeridge Country Park — sstaffs.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- Himley Hall and Park — dudley.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- The Bratch Locks — canalrivertrust.org.uk national body or asset manager