Home > Cheshire > Kent Green > Bird In Hand Bird In Hand
Picture Source: Chris Barrett
The Bird in Hand was situated on the bank of the Macclesfield Canal, a remarkably unspoilt canal-side beer-house. It was run by an old couple (mostly by the wife...) and was notable for its utterly unchanging interior; a cramped room with ancient settles, coal fire and a couple of Britannia tables. If you were particularly lucky you may be allowed to sit in her parlour, another small room overlooking the towpath and Macclesfield Canal. Toilet was outside across the yard. The old lady sourced the beer from a barrel settled in the cellar and brought it up to the bar in porcelain or tin jugs. Sadly she died in the 1990's and the place is now a private house (I'd guess it closed in c1998). In the right light the legend "Bird in Hand" can still be made out (albeit painted over) on the gable wall.
Neil Collins
Four of us took a narrow boat round the Four Counties Ring immediately after graduating in 1977. One of our guidebooks recommended the Bird in Hand in Kent Green, accessible from the canal, or by footpath from the road. No car access. It was exactly as described on this website - just like a kitchen from the 1950s-60s, and the elderly lady collected beer from the cellar in a jug. We brought out a pack of cards but she said cards could not be played and suggested dominoes. The others had not heard of “5s and 3s” and I quickly explained it to my mates, adding that that is what is played in pubs – we were all Maths graduates, so not a big problem! As we played, some locals arrived and gathered around to watch. They must have thought we were quite slow. When we finished our game, four of them said “all draw a domino, two highest play the two lowest”. By some miracle (?), they drew both the two highest and the two lowest, and we were able to watch how quickly seasoned players lay their dominoes and score on the pegs. We also realised how a mix of us and them would have been acutely embarrassing, finished our drinks and returned to the boat for a game of cards.
Eric Bridgstock (May 2016)
I grew up in Kent Green. The Bird in Hand was a Free House run for many years by Emmy &,Jack Whittacker. The had for many years a large, very gentle Pyreneen Mountain dog. We used to fish the canal and get "pop" there occasionally we got half a pint of cider. The pub was also famous fora large pear tree (no longer there because of an accident). Closing time came when Emmy or Jack couldn't or didn't want to get another gallon of beer. I went there in the mid 1990s with my late father who was other than me the youngest man there. The Bird was always the favourite pub for the more senior members of the community.
Ernest Garner (February 2019)
In spring of 1974 I walked with my uncle from Kidsgrove to Congleton along the Macclesfield canal. It was a bright sunny day. By 11 am we were both rather thirsty and saw The Bird in Hand looming up ahead next to the towpath. "This will be an experience for you," my uncle said. We knocked and were admitted by an elderly lady, and asked if we could have some beer. She looked a bit doubtful, since it was not yet opening time, but told us to take a seat and closed the door, then disappeared down some stairs. She emerged about a minute later with two sparkling glasses of cold lager. We sat in the parlour looking out onto the towpath. Was there an aspidistra next the window? I don't remember. Beer has never tasted so good. I tried to find the pub again recently, only to discover that it had been demolished.
Andrew Dale (May 2019)
We stopped at the Bird in Hand at Kent Green in 1976 whilst travelling the Cheshire Ring in British Waterways hire boat ‘Water Columbine’. As mentioned before on this site, the 90+ year old landlady brought us our beer from the tap room down a few steps. We sat on benches which ran all round the bar room. When there, the brewery rep came to collect the money for beer sales, and he was paid about £1200 in notes; quite a sum to carry in 1976!
John Simmons (February 2020)
We holidayed on the Cheshire Ring canals in 1977. On our way back to Congleton to return our narrow boat we got stuck on a sandbar just outside the Bird in Hand pub. A kind local gent managed to push us off but in the process got his feet wet. As a thank you to him we took him in to the pub to by him a pint. on our arrival we were met by a lovely old lady who ran the pub with her husband. (We never ever saw him.) Anyway and the local man dried his socks at the fire we enjoyed a Worthingtons pint which was brought up from the cellar in a tin jug by the landlady who also worked as a clippie (bus conductress) a couple of days a week. We were particularly struck by the decor of the bar which was decorated with enamel advertisements for Brasso and Acdo. What intrigued us most was the linoleum on the tables. A truly wonderful experience which we remember with great affection and still talk about to this day.
Robin Lawrie (January 2021)
In the 1980s friends and I took two Cheshire Ring narrowboat holidays together, the first at the start of the decade, the other in 1988. On each occasion the Bird in Hand provided our overnight mooring and an unforgettably old-fashioned evening’s hospitality presided over by its landlady Emmy Whittaker. She was already of some age when we first met her in 1980, a grande dame with commanding presence, an ever-lit cigarette at her lips, and dyed auburn hair; she had been a star of Music Hall and Variety Theatre, though what her stage name had been, and the substance of her Act, we were unable to ascertain. Her stage career had finished, we were told, around the start of World War Two, when she and Jack had taken on the Bird in Hand. It was when the men were all sent abroad that she took charge of the weekly market bus to Nantwich, carrying neighbours and produce from around the hamlet of Kent Green at first light to the market, then using the intervening hours to do her own provision shopping for the pub, before returning at day’s end with neighbours and their purchases. It is said she continued in this role for years after victory was declared. In 1980, although Emmy would herself periodically descend the cellar steps with the famous blue-rimmed white enamel half-gallon ale jug, as the evening wore on and she held court, a wave of her hand would despatch a trusted customer to perform the task and haul the refilled jug back up to be stood on the large old dresser which served for a bar. The darts board hung on the front parlour wall, above a settle and a Lino-covered long table, and strangers like ourselves, not permitted safe seats elsewhere, were obliged to sit beneath the board, as more than the occasional inexpert throw missed its target and bounced off us. Thick anoraks were advisable. When in Summer 1988 I returned on another Cheshire Ring voyage, Emmy was still there holding court, but only just; voiceless, a patch covering the trachaeotomy in her larynx, and a flame-coloured wig covering the results of chemotherapy. No more journeys for her to make down the cellar steps with the blue-rimmed jug- a roster of loyal customers had been organised to ensure the excellently kept ale still came up to the dresser as efficiently as before. Still she chain-smoked, defiant in the face of the Enemy. Thirty-odd years beyond her passing, she and the Bird in Hand are established Macclesfield Canal folklore, legends certain to endure beyond living memory.
Iain McLean (June 2021)
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Other Photos
Picture Source: Chris Barrett
Date of photo: 1986	Picture Source: Peter Scott
Date of photo: 1986	Picture Source: Peter Scott