A first ever visit to a town that is Lancashire to its core, where I discover that there are a number of small bars alongside the more traditional pubs that have become an established part of the local social scene.... It was not a simple brief I had given myself. Where to go that was relatively close, somewhere I'd never visited before, and a place that had enough Good Beer Guide pubs to make the journey worthwhile. Not easy, as the list of places that fit that criteria, has gradually got much shorter. And that is why that in the end I settled on Darwen, situated in heart of the West Pennine hills between Blackburn and Bolton, around an hour and 25 minutes away from Halifax by train, and home to three Good Beer Guide listings. I booked a ticket for the 11.30 to Blackpool North, which involved getting off at Blackburn and from there catching a connecting train to Darwen. I had thought that the worst of the seaside-bound crowds would have passed by then, but as the train pulled into