The Dog and Doublet at Sandon takes its name from one of two stories. In one, a landlord was murdered by robbers and his faithful hound brought the blood-stained doublet back to the inn and led a search party to the body. In the other, a travelling fair visited Sandon with a performing dog in a little jacket and the villagers liked it enough to name the pub after it.
The present building dates from 1906. An earlier Dog and Doublet stood across the road at what is now Sandon Lodge, also called Erdeswicke House, and existed by the mid 18th century. After Sandon Hall burned down in 1848, the Earl of Harrowby moved the sign to another inn. The ghost did not move. Sam Berrisford, a former chairman of the parish council who lived in part of Sandon Lodge, described a man in brown clothes and a small wig, thought to be a former landlord, who was still reported haunting the old inn in the 1950s, according to a Birmingham Weekly Post article of 1950.
A further story concerns the 18th century landlord James Ballantine, whose daughter is said to have eloped, with Ballantine handing her young husband to the law, after which he was hanged for theft. Villagers are said to have gathered outside the inn on the night chanting the 69th psalm and cursing the landlord. A verse about a dog in a doublet was reportedly scratched on a window. The writer says plainly that it is not known whether the elopement story is true.
This entry rests on one reminiscence of a ghost, and two competing name legends, so it is tagged as traditional.
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