Watch: Inside the award-winning pub at the heart of a Staffordshire village
It's become a community hub, a supportive centre of a village and a pub which has achieved high standards and been acknowledged as one of the best.
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The Star in Penkridge sits in the centre of the village on the old Market Place, adorned with red brick and a tiled roof, and is a venue which has been a leading pub as part of the Marston's brand, having been voted Marston's pub of the year in 2023 and has been shortlisted in the Great British Pub Awards 2024 in the Pub of the Year (Sponsored by Marstons) category.
It has been part of the village since the 1820s when it opened under the stewardship of William Southern as an inn, then became a beerhouse in 1883 and had closed in 1908 and taken on a new life as a Co-op store and a private residence before being restored and converted back into a pub in 1981.
The success of the pub has been the product of hard work by the staff, with landlady Alison Heath having led the way since taking over in 2017.
Ms Heath said she had always been in the trade through her grandparents and parents and, after leaving the RAF in 2005, she starting running hotels and pubs and said that there had been a lot to do when she took over the Star in 2017.
She said: "When we came in, it had the feeling of a working men's club, with no gin list and wine on tap, not out of the bottle.
"There were a number of easy changes to be made, starting with adding a card machine, because you wouldn't be able to run a pub without one of those nowadays and then started making it more friendly for women, as it had been very male-heavy.
