B5331

Railway bridge over the B5331

The B5331 is an unusual road in that it meets only one other classified road. This is a situation that normally occurs only on the coast (where a road has nowhere else to go without falling in the sea). However, the B5331 is completely inland. It exists purely to link the village of Rudyard with the A-road network – although the village seems too small for this to be necessary. The road is called Rudyard Road for its entire length. Originally unclassified, it gained its number in the late 1920s.

The route starts on the A523 at the hamlet of Poolend, from where we make our way slowly towards Rudyard. About halfway along, we come to the road's only side-turn, the unsuitable-for-HGVs Green Lane, leading back to the A523. A quarter of a mile further on we pass below a now dismantled section of the former North Staffordshire Railway's Churnet Valley line. The site of Rudyard station (renamed Rudyard Lake in 1926) is now a car park and the Rudyard Lake Steam Railway has laid a narrow-gauge track along the lakeside from here.

After crossing the River Churnet and the Staffordshire Way in quick succession. the B5331 comes to an end at a mini-roundabout next to the now closed Poacher's Tavern (formerly the Station Hotel) in the centre of Rudyard village.