We visit a charming Wyre Forest pub run with love by its owners and with a great meal on offer

Take a ride out of Stourbridge on the A456 and you will leave the urban conurbation and find yourself in rolling hills and countryside.

The road between Stourbridge and Kidderminster takes in a wide range of scenes and scenery, from trees and green fields to small and idyllic villages spread across Worcestershire and the Wyre Forest.

One of the villages on the way, Blakedown, is home to a very cosy, comfortable and modern pub with owners possessing 20 years of making it a success under their belt.

The Swan acts as both the gateway in and out of the village and has been a part of the village for a long time, with parts of it going back as far as the 1750s.

As with many pubs in the region, it acted as a coaching inn, with stables on the site, and was also a popular setting during the Second World War with the various American camps set up around the area.

It is run by Chris and Tracy Low, who took it over in 2006 when Mr Low said the opportunity had come up and they felt it was too good to miss.

He said: “I used to work in hospitality in Birmingham and ran bars like Bar Room Bar in the Mailbox and The Jam House, then got a job as a general manager at a bar in Bromsgrove and took a share in that.

“This place came up almost by accident as we stumbled into being here, but we very quickly decided that it was a good place to be and then we wanted to take it up.

“It’s one of those things where my wife and I have been happier working for ourselves and saw it as a great opportunity and we’ve found Blakedown to be a cracking village with really good people.”

Mr Low said it was the perfect fit for the whole family, with good schools and easy access to places like Birmingham and Worcester, as well as being set right on the edge of very beautiful countryside.

He said that he had made changes over time, with a major refurbishment at the beginning and a change in how the pub operated, moving from a traditional drinkers pub to being more food-led and having more places for people to sit and eat.

He said: “There’s not much business and money in just having a drinking pub, unless you’re in a city centre on a high street, so it made sense to become more food-led, with dining tables and other bits being added in.

“We make pretty much everything here and it’s all homemade stuff that is consistent and good, with my wife and I being the only chefs since Covid and which means that it’s made by people who care about the business.

“We know how to make a good gravy, we can do your pub classics and I’ll put my fish and chips and sticky toffee pudding up against anyone else’s, plus we usually do about 120 to 130 Sunday roasts every week.”

While the Swan is very much a foodies pub, it still has a place for drinkers and offers real ales from a rotating group of around 10 to 12 local breweries, as well as main brands like Birra Moretti and Peroni, plus an extensive list of spirits from Wyre Forest Gins and other distilleries.

Mr Cox said that, as a freehold, it gave the pub more freedom to choose and said he was lucky to have the choice at a pub he said was a labour of love, but something he wouldn’t change for the world.

He said: “All our gins and wines are here because we’re lucky enough to be able to choose whatever supplier we want and means we can have a tasting.

“The Swan is a labour of love and it’s somewhere that isn’t going to make us rich, but it’s made my family what it is today through the opportunity to bring our kids up in an environment that is near enough to cities, but also means they had the security to go out and play in a safe area.

“I work six days a week and I like to think I know 80 per cent of the people who come in here to eat and drink, because it’s all about building relationships.

“It’s why people go into hospitality in the first place, to have a bit of fun and see someone happy with what you’ve produced.”