Pub history · No.11 of 18 · Coalport & Jackfield
The Half Moon Inn
1802 | The pub with a jug as big as a man
If we're choosing the best object connected with any of these 18 pubs, the Half Moon has a serious contender.
A gigantic jug.
The Half Moon's licence was granted in 1802, though the building sits on the footprint of an earlier coach house.
That pushes its pub history much further back than the 1840 date often repeated locally.
Jackfield then had around a dozen pubs serving potters, boatmen, railwaymen and the thousands of people employed in the riverside industries.
At some point, a landlord challenged the Coalport China Works to produce a jug “as big as a man could manage”.
If they managed it, he would fill it with ale.
They did.
So did he.
And the locals drank it dry.
Then a flood swept the enormous jug away.
Villagers recovered the broken pieces, put it back together and returned it to the pub.
It survives today at the Museum of Iron in Coalbrookdale.
The Half Moon also survived the landslips and road changes that completely altered this part of Jackfield.
The scenery changed.
The pub stayed.
How we know this date
- DocumentedThe first licence for the Half Moon was granted in 1802, moving the pub's documented start well back from the traditionally quoted 1840.Source: 1802 licence record
- DocumentedThe first traceable landlord is George Richards, recorded in 1835.Source: 1835 landlord record
- DocumentedThe Brewery History Society records Hiram Hill as licensee in 1898, and the great Coalport jug itself survives at the Museum of Iron.Source: Brewery History Society; Museum of Iron
This is a working date. If you have a document or photograph that changes it, we'd genuinely like to see it.
A jug “as big as a man could manage” — and the locals drank it dry.
Then
Now
The Half Moon Inn · Coalport & Jackfield
Can you help with The Half Moon Inn?
We're still researching this pub. Old photographs, licences, newspaper cuttings, brewery documents or family memories all help — and if you have evidence that changes our date, we'd genuinely like to see it.
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