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Revisiting some Sheffield favourites

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Kelham Island is an old industrial area bordered by the River Don to to the north and the A61 dual carriageway to the south. It’s famous among beer fans as the location of two influential pubs which together spurred the transformation of the Sheffield beer scene. The factories and chimneys have been replaced by an industrial museum, restaurants, cafes, bars and new apartment blocks. and the area is now very fashionable. Its impact has led to an expanding boundary and I counted at least 6 decent pubs on the wrong side of the Don or A61 now listed with “Kelham…

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The Thursday Murder a Beer Club

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There’s quite a few of us in this club. You’ll see us in groups of 3 or 4 on a Thursday afternoon with pints in front of us in a pub that serves good beer, or has a bit of character, or probably both. We’re aged from 63 upwards, mostly male, retired, and up for a good day out. We’re not local, we’ve used our Senior Railcards and maybe also our bus passes to get here. Sometimes we’ll stay in the same pub if it’s really good but it’s much more likely that we’ll visit three or four, and maybe…

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My Top Five Pub Discoveries in 2025

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For my first and last blog post of the year I’ve chosen five of the best pubs I visited for the first time in 2025. I’ve done this for the past five years and it’s fair to say that my tastes haven’t changed too much in that time. All of this year’s are ‘proper pubs’ (whatever that means) and four out of the five are ‘heritage pubs’ with a historic interior.

My Top Five Pub Discoveries in 2024

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A lot of my pub trips this year have been guided by my quest to visit all art deco pubs in the UK. I didn’t just visit art deco pubs of course, and came across a few classic pubs which I’d never been to before. The top five pubs this year go from Tynemouth in the north of England to Brighton in the south plus a hop across the Irish Sea to Belfast.

A stroll around the heritage pubs of Maida Vale

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Maida Vale is a well off residential area in north west London known for its streets of mansion blocks. It’s also home to Little Venice, the canal basin on the Regents Canal famous for multiple narrowboats and waterside cafes and pubs. What the area is less well known for is its collection of exceptional Victorian heritage pubs. This short walk takes in four pubs, all well worth a visit to see the extravagant steps brewers and entrepreneurs took to ensure their pub outdid their neighbours in style and elegance.

Translucent Style: Cut & Etched Glass in Pubs

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Cutting, etching and embossing glass was perfected by the Victorians and put to excellent effect in many of the hundreds of pubs they built towards the end of the 19th century. Almost all Victorian and Edwardian urban pubs had decorative translucent glass and although most of it has been torn out, much still remains. Etched glass was still popular in the 1920s and 1930s, although the intricate art nouveau patterns had given way to simpler geometric designs. Pubs continue to add etched glass windows today, often to replace glass that was removed in the clear glass craze of the 1990s and early 2000s, and sometimes to replace original glass with modern copies.

Harry Redfern’s Carlisle Legacy: the ‘model pubs’ of the State Management Scheme

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One of the key proposals of the Carlisle State Management Scheme was to reconstruct existing pubs and build new pubs to an ideal agreed by the various interests behind alcohol reduction. The scheme needed an architect and the person chosen was Harry Redfern, who was to oversee the programme until the early 1940s. Redfern’s pubs were revolutionary and became a huge influence on the ‘improved pubs’ movement that was taking off across the country in the inter-war period.

Britain’s ancient pubs (or are they?)

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The pub guide on this website has a category called Ancient Pubs. When I added it I was thinking about the very oldest pubs and I’d assumed that it would include those dating from maybe the 1100s up to the 1400s. Like most people, I was ready to believe claims made by pubs like “dates back to the twelfth century”, or “over 800 years old”. And why not, as these claims are repeated without question in dozens of pub guides from the early 1900s to the present day.