The Angel was one of the many pubs on the High Street and is perhaps most remembered, for supposedly getting closed down because of it’s location near to the church.

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The local legend goes, that the wife of a well known public figure, either objected to walking past it on her way to church, or that alternatively that she felt some people were tempted into drinking rather than attending church. While there may have been objections to it’s location, it’s eventual closure wasn’t (officially) attributed to any public complaints.

 

A sale notice from the Staffordshire Advertiser in 1803 is of note, because it gives us the name of the earliest known owner and proprietor, Michael Bennett. The pub was Lot 1 in an 1803 sale, but went unsold as a few years later it was for sale again.

 

According to the sales notice in 1806, the Angel was “consisting of three good Rooms the ground floor, besides an excellent Brewhouse, three Chambers and two Garrets, and capital Cellars, with two Stables, large and commodious Yard and good Garden, all contiguous to the House, and the joint use of Pump at the back door, with every other convenience which can render this truly desirable situation of its kind. ”

 

When the pub was sold at auction in July 1877 it was described as a “well-accustomed house in an excellent situation” landlord Edwin James was described as newly occupied; which tallies with the information used for the Victorian Cheadle book published in the early 1990s.

 

Landlord Enoch Brunt left the Angel because of problems with his eye sight, before leaving he carved his name on the pub’s hearthstone.

 

By 1901 the pub was owned by the Burton Brewery Co.

 

In 1909 the local licensing authority made steps to close this inn along with the Old Royal Oak. Both were officially closed on the grounds of redundancy, the owners of the Angel received £550 in compensation from the committee.

 

In 1909, when the pub closed a sale of it’s furniture and fittings was held on October 9th, a few days later licensee Mary Anne Malbon moved to the White Horse Inn.

 

Past Proprietors:

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Michael Bennett (Staffordshire Advertiser 1803 & 1806)
Henry Slater (Parson and Bradshaw – Staffordshire Directory 1818)
John Bowring (Pigot & Co.’s National Directory 1828-29)
Sampson Bagnall (Pigot’s Directory of Staffordshire 1834)
John Watson (1837 – Victorian Cheadle 1841-1881)
? Bagnall (1841)
William Titterton [from 1841] (Pigot’s Directory of Staffordshire 1842)
Benjamin Plant (Staffordshire Advertiser 1843)
William Johnson (1845 St. Giles Pew Allocation)
William Capewell (Post Office Directory of Birmingham with Staffordshire & Worcestershire 1849 and 1850 – Slater’s Directory)
Mary Tipper (White’s Directory of Staffordshire 1851)
Felix James (Kelly’s Post Office Directory of Staffordshire 1860 and Directory and Gazetteer of Staffordshire with Dudley, Harrison & Harrod 1861)
John James (1861 – Victorian Cheadle 1841-1881)
Thomas James [1864-1868] (Victorian Cheadle 1841-1881)
George Massey (1870 – Victorian Cheadle 1841-1881)
Adam Perkin (1871, Kelly’s Post Office Directory of Staffordshire 1872) [until Aug 1874]
Frederick Brassington [from Aug 1874] (Leek Times 1874)
Edwin James (1876 – Victorian Cheadle 1841-1881 and Staffordshire Sentinel and Commercial & General Advertiser 1877)
William Plant [from July 1878 to 1881] (Kelly’s Directory of Staffordshire 1880)
Enoch Brunt (Kelly’s Directory of Staffordshire 1884) [until March 1889]
Thomas Mountford [from March 1889 until Aug 1890] (1889 and 1890 Cheadle Herald)
Walter Nutt [from Aug 1890] (1890 Cheadle Herald, Kelly’s Directory of Staffordshire 1892)
Emma Wright (Kelly’s Directory of Staffordshire 1896, 1900 and 1904)
Mary Ann Malbon [Last licensee in 1909]

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