About Us

We bought the Blue Bell from Whitbread in November 1997, having discovered in July that the pub was closed and up for sale. This seemed the ideal opportunity to fulfil a long-time ambition, to run our own pub. It would sell only cask-conditioned beer; there would be no British “lagers”, neither would there be a TV, juke box, or fruit machines.

We’ve both been CAMRA members since the 1970’s, and had been involved in the organisation of most of the Stoke Beer Festivals. That experience, together with our backgrounds in finance, gave us the confidence to give it a go.

It took four months to get the building up to scratch, and on 7 April 1998 the Blue Bell re-opened for business. Trade was slow in the early days, but once word got round, the customers started to appear, and we’ve never looked back.

From that point the Blue Bell has gone from strength to strength. Our original intention was for it to be the sort of pub we would like as our own local, and it’s surprising just how many people have the same criteria. Good beer, no loud music, pool table or intrusive TV; “You can hear yourself think” has been said to us many times. And in 2006, in response to repeated requests, we made the entire pub no-smoking - some 18 months before we were obliged to do so by law. We have a very good crowd of regular customers, some of whom have been with us from the start - many thanks to them.

The Blue Bell is a very sociable pub - charity fund-raising events, occasional quizzes, the ever-popular Blue Bell Ramblers, all add to its appeal. You may not agree with some of our policies (no drinking out of bottles, no swearing, we don’t do food but we do allow dogs in) but that’s the way we want it to be, and lots of people seem to agree with us. And if you can understand our off-the-wall sense of humour, so much the better!

Cheers - Dave & Kay