The Swan Inn has a hanging pub sign that shows a picture of a swan swimming on the mere with St Michael and All Saints Church on the hill in the background. The name of the pub is depicted in black lettering edged with red above with Marbury in red lettering below.
The swan on pub signs can be heraldic or related to birds of the area.
Swan is the 5th most common pub name with 309, according to common names of open pubs listed on the Pubs Galore website. (
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The Swan has recently undergone major alterations and refurbishment and re-opened on Moday 16th April 2018. (
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It is located facing the village green on Wrenbury Road, and is just a short walk away from bridges 23 and 24 on the Llangollen Canal.
Parts of original building pre dates 1760 and the stables are Grade 2 listed, and are now part of the pubs' buildings, following careful renovation. (
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History
"The Swan has sat at the epicentre of Marbury life for more than 250 years. Records show that Thomas Briscall left the Swan in 1767 handing the keys to John Broad Hurst, who was behind the bar until 1786.
That would be quite challenging in those rumbustious days, with badger baiting, cockfighting and bare knuckle boxing commonplace. John would have had a lot to cope with as punters quaffed a jug or three to celebrate winnings or mourn their losses.
Some landlords had longevity. John Penny was there 21 years from 1817 while, John Tapley and his wife did twenty years, from 1838 to 1858. They had five daughters and would have needed them. Marbury was a busy place in those days with blacksmiths, butchers, shoemakers and tailors, while most people working in cheese making and agriculture would have had healthy thirsts to slake.
Competition was fierce. The Hollybush at Norbury and the Bridge Inn in Quoisley were alehouses while the Leathern Bottle at Hollyhurst and the Swan were the posher ‘public’ houses. Back then ‘alewives’ would brew the beer.
The Leathern Bottle did not survive, but the ‘Old Swan’ was rebuilt in the 1880s by the local ‘squires’, the Cudworth Halstead Poole family. In 1891 builder Joseph Harding and wife Betsy took on the ‘New Swan’ while farming alongside with cattle, sheep and pigs – quite normal then. By this time the Crewe to Whitchurch railway had arrived and visitors would come by train to watch bare knuckled.
Remarkably, the tenancy passed through generations of the Harding family for 95 years.
The 1930s saw the Swan snapped up by the ambitious Wem Brewery. The brewery was known as ‘The Treacle Mines’ – which could have been a tribute to the ale, or not.
By 1974 George and Ann Sumner had taken on the Swan and found life so agreeable they stayed to run a successful pub right up until 1998.
After that the pub changed hands several times over the years, until Jerry Brunning bought it to begin the next chapter in the Swan’s rich history. It was a long slog to painstakingly repair and restore the 19th century building.
But April 2018 saw the Swan open its doors to once again take its place as a traditional country inn at the heart of the village, in Jerry’s own individual style of course – and with Wi-Fi." Source:History taken from the pubs website where more information and photos of the refurbishment can be seen. (
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