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A Place In The Country....

A reflection on rural pubs, how things have changed over the years, and how some of them have adapted in order to survive in these difficult times.... I revisited a pub at the weekend where I used to go sometimes when I was a lad, and whilst I have called in intermittently over the years, it was quite a while since I'd last visited, and so it was interesting to see how it had changed. The pub in question was the Fleece at Barkisland, which is situated high above the West Yorkshire village of Ripponden on the edge of the Pennine moors, where I was attending the evening part of the wedding of one of the football lads, whose stag do I referred to in the blog I wrote following our recent visit to  Boston and Newark.   The Fleece is a traditional pub which, according to an inscription in the stone over the door, dates back to 1737. It was situated on an old pack horse route which in these parts tended to go over the hills and avoid the valleys below, which were often dangerous with pote
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A Cultured Night In Bradford....

A rare new pub has joined the select group in Bradford city centre that are in the Good Beer Guide for the 2025 edition, so I have been along to give it a try whilst checking in on some old favourites....   I caught the train early Friday evening from Halifax to take me on the short journey to Bradford Interchange. I alighted from the train and walked down the steps from the platforms to the concourse and out to the front of the station where the normally taxi-dominated car park was closed off behind fencing. But it wasn't just there. As I left the station I had to follow a walkway between fenced-off areas. Every now and again there would be another walkway heading off in a different direction, whilst behind the fencing were stacks of stones, bulldozers, and other equipment as a vast swathe of the city centre is being pedestrianised and a new urban park created as Bradford prepares to take on the mantle of UK City of Culture for 2025.  The walkway finished at the other side of the

No Humble Pie In Wigan....

A return to the famous Lancashire town of Wigan for the first time since I visited the town's beer festival in that strange period when Covid cases were increasing and rumours of an impending lockdown started to swirl around. And so with no festival on this time (or so I thought) my plan was to take in a number of pubs in the town centre that I'd not visited last time.... Last time I visited Wigan I had introduced the town as follows: "Home of the so-called Pie-Eaters. Home of Uncle Joe's Mint Balls. The location of the former Empress Ballroom, which in the 1970's morphed into Wigan Casino, the spiritual home of Northern Soul. A town whose famous people include George Formby, Stuart Maconie, Andy Gregory, Kay Burley, and Georgie Fame. A traditional rugby league town. A former mining and mill town. The inspiration for George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier , in which he highlighted the poor living conditions of Britain's working class. A historic town, with

Just Beer And Pilgrims....

A football-away-trip-cum-stag-do taking in two different towns. First up we headed east to the market town and port of Boston for the football, followed by an evening and a stopover in the historic market town of Newark-on-Trent in the middle of Nottinghamshire. Here's what happened.... I was picked up around 8.45 last Saturday morning, and after a hearty breakfast and catch up with the other lads at the Shay Cafe, which nestles in the shadow of the Shay Stadium home of FC Halifax Town, we set off in two cars on our journey to the far-flung south-eastern corner of Lincolnshire. We were on our way to Boston, where the local team were back in the National League after several seasons in the league below. I had been here for football once before, but it was not on the last occasion the teams had met one level below in the National League North when Town triumphed 4-1 in their promotion-winning season of 2016-17. I checked back and my last visit had been in 2011, when the sides had sha

The Streets Of Piccadilly....

Here's a tour around a number of Manchester pubs and bars in the network of streets between Piccadilly and Great Ancoats Street, including a couple that are settling into life under new ownership.... It had been over two months since I had last been to Manchester so with a spare day I off I decided to go over one of my favourite cities and check out a couple of new bars that had opened recently under new guises. One of them was the Rat & Pigeon, a re-working of a previous pub, Mother Mac's, the other a takeover of the former Pelican bar by new owners, Fell. They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and it can certainly be a source of frustration too. I thought I knew where the Rat & Pigeon would be, and to be fair I do know Manchester pretty well. But I should really have checked the address before I set off towards Piccadilly. I walked amongst and out beyond the seething masses of Piccadilly Gardens and then looked to where I thought the pub should be...but it w