Cocky Anchor pub in Broad Street is welcome port in a storm

To climb to the top of the Cocky Anchor at 61 Broad Street, Worcester feels much like ascending the dizzying heights of a lighthouse or scaling the crow's nest of a grand old galleon.

WOW: View of the Cathedral from the top of the Cocky Anchor in Broad Street in Worcester (Image: James Connell/Newsquest)

But it is worth climbing around 100 steps (there are six floors including the basement) to the domed cupola with its weather vane. It is certainly a voyage of discovery for there you are rewarded with commanding, panoramic views of the city below, with the rooftops spread out far below like so many ships in a harbour.

MAJESTIC: The cupola (locals dubbed it 'the synagogue because of its shape') at the summit of 61 Broad Street, now the Cocky Anchor in Broad Street (Image: James Connell/Newsquest)

Of all the pubs in the city, this one possibly deserves most of all the pronoun 'she' for the pub has the character of an old ship from the days when Britannia ruled the waves and stretched out before her the long tentacles of empire. 

GRAND: A reminder you should always look up in a city as rich in history as Worcester with 61 Broad Street (now the Cocky Anchor) having more than most buildings with its original painted heads (Image: James Connell/Newsquest)

Even the bar is designed to resemble the prow of a ship and the atmosphere is only enhanced by a veritable cabinet of curiosities - carefully chosen antiques purchased from Britain's auction houses, ranging from an old diving helmet to duelling pistols and from portraits of our illustrious seafaring ancestors to paintings of the resplendent ships of Britain's past.

NAUTICAL: A diving helmet forms a unique lamp as you climb the spiral staircase of the Cocky Anchor (Image: James Connell/Newsquest)

The dramatic effect is to create a sort of nautical nirvana for hardened sea dogs and landlubbers alike. The pub opened in November last year, in time for the Victorian Christmas Fayre. 

For owner Ian Paxton the sea is, quite literally, in his blood - one of his ancestors, working as a cooper, served on HMS Victory (Lord Nelson's flagship) and his wife also served with the Royal Navy.

HEIGHT: The Cocky Anchor is a treasure trove of curiosities including these duelling pistols - the photo here shows the view up the staircase (Image: James Connell/Newsquest)

A man of many talents, Mr Paxton even came up with the idea of the pub's logo himself - a cockerel in an admiral's uniform bestriding an anchor gazing out to sea with a spyglass.

He said: "The whole basis is to create a traditional pub. We don't have televisions and music blaring. It's for people to come and have a conversation and it goes back to traditional values."

LAVISH: One of the upstairs rooms in the Cocky Anchor at 61 Broad Street in Worcester (Image: James Connell/Newsquest)

The beer on sale is Anchor Ale, brewed specially for the Cocky Anchor by Flack's based in Romsey where her sister pub is also based. But local ales are also served at the Anchor in Worcester and are being shared and promoted at the sister pub in Hampshire (and vice versa) - a sort of ale exchange programme if you will. 

MARVEL: The orangery at the back of the Cocky Anchor with a retractable glass roof to form a courtyard in summer (Image: James Connell/Newsquest)

On the ground floor is an orangery where the builders have created a retracting glass roof which can open in the summer, forming a sort of courtyard (complete with authentic Georgian floorboards) with a living wall at the back which is enough to make you think you might have stepped off the gangplank into the Caribbean.

ART: Ian Paxton admires one of the many paintings in the Cocky Anchor, this one showing Queen Victoria and a young Lord Mountbatten on his mother's knee (Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine) (Image: James Connell/Newsquest)

Julian Castle, an architect for Anchor Design, was tasked with bringing the vision to life but it is also been a careful project of restoration of the elegant grade II* building, formerly known as Cupola House, which could date from as early as 1720 (Historic England says 1740).

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It has been a house, a corset shop and a vaping business. This latest incarnation rescues her from the fathoms of the obscurity in which she has long languished. Many of the upstairs rooms were largely derelict before they were painstakingly restored and salvaged for future generations.

ADVENTURE: The carefully chosen pictures conjure up the heyday of exploration and empire at the Cocky Anchor in Broad Street (Image: James Connell/Newsquest)

However, possibly the most distinctive feature is the humorous 'clock bogs' - toilets with grandfather clocks. To flush in the gents simply use the old carriage lamp. To flush in the ladies, push the button on the barometer. 

UNIQUE: The clock bogs at the Cocky Anchor are a marvel of engineering and ingenuity (Image: James Connell/Newsquest)

Again the idea was that of Mr Paxton who said: "This is a unique flushing mechanism. There is nothing like this in the world. We can say we invented it."

The distinctive painted heads on the exterior (they seem like figureheads on a venture such as this) are believed to be a merchant, a soldier and a cleric but there is some suggestion one of the heads might be that of a rabbi. Part of the building (the cupola) may have been a synagogue or was described as such by locals because it resembled one. 

The 18th century Cupola Suite under the dome is available to hire out for functions. The blue room is also rentable for conferences.