the Public House Hall of Shame

[Doosh]

I just think they're a relic of a bygone age, along with the Butcher, Baker and Greengrocer from the high street.

My local high street has three good butchers, two excellent bakers and three fine greengrocers, not to mention a couple of fishmongers - all small, independent, family-run concerns and all thriving, as far as I can tell, with or without the patronage of cycling hippies.

It also has several excellent pubs, as well as two superb independent off licences.

nicknack - it also has a cake shop, but you probably knew that already. And two old-fashioned sweet shops.

d.

I think you're the exception rather than the norm these days, I don't have any of those near me.

The nearest high street to me has a chemist, a superdrug thingy and half a dozen charidee shops. There is a market once a week, but it's usually full of stalls selling mobile phone cases and other such pound shop tat. Oh and the obligatory Greggs 

All the pubs are run down ex miners welfares or the like, if they aren't boarded up now then they soon will be.

[citoyen]

I think you're the exception rather than the norm these days

Definitely true. It's one of the reasons I live where I do. 

Having said that, I think it's a mixed blessing, tbh. We have a higher proportion of independent shops on our high street than any other town in Britain, according to a recent poll, but that's not to say that every shop on our high street is a charming little independent boutique - we have a number of charity shops, and even a Starbucks or McDonald's would be preferable to the empty units.

And - to get back on topic - while we have 12 pubs on or just-off the high street, I would only consider about half of them to be places I would drink in. One place I used to frequent is now a horrible dingy old dive with a rather unsavoury clientele. I would name it but I can't remember what it's called these days. And like every other town in Britain, we've also lost quite a few pubs in recent memory, including several classic old gems.

d.

[Doosh]

It's easy for me to list all the shit pubs near me, it's basically all of them 

So if you in or around the Alfreton area don't venture into the following;

The Plough
The Robin
Waggon and Horses (Wetherspoons  )
Ye Olde Macdonald Farm
Miners Welfare
Victoria Inn
The Station
Miners Arms
Devonshire Arms

They're all dives.

[hellymedic]

Is there any part of Alfreton that is not a dive?

(Is The Specials 'Ghost Town' modelled on it?)

[Doosh]

No, it's all a dive. If the Specials were local to the area they'd have renamed that song Shit Town.

If I could afford to live anywhere else I'd be there in a shot. I suppose it could be worse, I could live in Kirkby or Sutton, they make Alfreton look like Saint-Tropez.

[Kim]

The Fiat Of The Apocalypse tried to strand barakta and I in Alfreton with one of it trademark comedy electrical faults once.   

Fortunately on that occasion it responded to a stern talking-to.

[deliquium]

West of Glasgow

[Hot Flatus]

To be quite honest, at the moment, there is no such thing as a shit pub

[nicknack]

To be quite honest, atbthe moment, there is no such thing as a shit pub

Well resurrected! Although it's the wrong day of Easter.
Can't fault the sentiment.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Can't remember its name but it was in the heart of Moss Side not far from our digs in the 80's.

Looked ok so in we went.  Inside it was spotless and practically everything in it was painted either white or red.  The clientele took no notice of us at all and we had no trouble getting served.  It was very quiet.

But there was a palpable chill in the air.  All four of us felt it at once.  We spoke in low voices because it was quiet, drank up and left as if that's exactly what we were going to do anyway.

Inside a week the shootings began, appropriately enough the first was in another nearby pub called 'The Big Western'.

[SoreTween]

Another criterion for entries is places that look so unwelcoming or hostile that you wouldn't want to go in with all your mates and a big stick.

Never judge a bookpub by it's cover. To do so would rule out crossing the threshold of The Grill, Aberdeen. Has the look of a boarded up ex (and possibly burned out) tobacconist.

https://goo.gl/maps/gZf9CNCsSbxb91hE6

[rogerzilla]

To be quite honest, at the moment, there is no such thing as a shit pub

Even a Spoons in the wrong end of Swindon with shirtless alcoholics at the tables outside screaming "show us yer tits!" at passers-by?

[Hot Flatus]

To be quite honest, at the moment, there is no such thing as a shit pub

Even a Spoons in the wrong end of Swindon with shirtless alcoholics at the tables outside screaming "show us yer tits!" at passers-by?

Ha ha loving the implication that there is a right end of Swindon

[ElyDave]

Another criterion for entries is places that look so unwelcoming or hostile that you wouldn't want to go in with all your mates and a big stick.

Never judge a bookpub by it's cover. To do so would rule out crossing the threshold of The Grill, Aberdeen. Has the look of a boarded up ex (and possibly burned out) tobacconist.

https://goo.gl/maps/gZf9CNCsSbxb91hE6

The Grill is THE BEST bar for single malts without exception. I think I tried my first  Japanese whisky there. 


Then there is the place in COventry, round the corner from a hotel I was staying at.  Much like that described by Asterix, me and another chap walked in, heads swivelled, we ordered our beer, drank it and left.  The ICU club up the road was much more welcoming and they played cards.

[nicknack]

About 15 years ago you could walk out of Sittingbourne station and there'd be a pub to your right and one to the left. On your right was the Fountain, a Shepherd Neame pub. A friendly place run by Steve, an excellent landlord. On the left was the Globe and Engine, another SN pub but very different from the Fountain. The head turning and instant hush was bad enough but the worst was the display of dolls all around the pub on a high shelf. Not a place you wanted to stay for a leisurely pint.

[Tim Hall]

Another criterion for entries is places that look so unwelcoming or hostile that you wouldn't want to go in with all your mates and a big stick.

Never judge a bookpub by it's cover. To do so would rule out crossing the threshold of The Grill, Aberdeen. Has the look of a boarded up ex (and possibly burned out) tobacconist.

https://goo.gl/maps/gZf9CNCsSbxb91hE6

The Grill is THE BEST bar for single malts without exception. I think I tried my first  Japanese whisky there. 


Then there is the place in COventry, round the corner from a hotel I was staying at.  Much like that described by Asterix, me and another chap walked in, heads swivelled, we ordered our beer, drank it and left.  The ICU club up the road was much more welcoming and they played cards.

When I went to The Grill a Several of years ago, there was a sign on the door saying it didn't have ladies' loos.

[SoreTween]

Thing that got me about the Grill was not the malts. They are without question the finest whiskey establishment known to man. I drank my first Japanese there and my not-worth-it expensive shot there. Yet my tolerance is not strong so I remain a beer drinker who very much enjoys a fine malt at the end of the evening.  My modus operandi for beer drinking is when I walk in a pub to read the pump labels and whatever I don't recognise or I'm sure I've not had before - that's what I drink.  I'm a journey drinker not a destination drinker. On walking into the Grill I was often be faced with more brews I needed to sample than I could get through. Festival rules had to be applied¹.

I'm told the wine selection is equally challenging.
To find a pub so utterly brilliant at one discipline is a treat. That it is has mastery of two is very, very rare indeed. I leave confirmation of the third to others.

The company there was brilliant too though I do note that I was in scabby for about 6 months immediately after the previous oil price crash. The o&g workers just off the rigs buying round after round of willy waving expensive malts were utterly absent.

¹Drinking halves is not cheating at a beer festival. Personally, I don't get on with thirds, too small to get a proper taste. Beer needs to stand in the glass a while to reveal its full flavour (good or bad)

[Jaded]

Another criterion for entries is places that look so unwelcoming or hostile that you wouldn't want to go in with all your mates and a big stick.

Never judge a bookpub by it's cover. To do so would rule out crossing the threshold of The Grill, Aberdeen. Has the look of a boarded up ex (and possibly burned out) tobacconist.

https://goo.gl/maps/gZf9CNCsSbxb91hE6

The Grill is THE BEST bar for single malts without exception. I think I tried my first  Japanese whisky there. 


Then there is the place in COventry, round the corner from a hotel I was staying at.  Much like that described by Asterix, me and another chap walked in, heads swivelled, we ordered our beer, drank it and left.  The ICU club up the road was much more welcoming and they played cards.

and they had ventilators.

[ian]

Many thousands of years ago, we moved from west to south-east London on the grounds it was cheap and the waves of gentrification had yet to wash up on its shores. Which means we got a house so bijou that you had to move the bed to open the wardrobe. It also meant that you could buy excellent jerk chicken and every kind of drug you wanted from the bloke with the oil-drum bbq under the train bridge. I knew about the drugs because he had a price list painted on a board next to him. Behind him was the scariest cafe ever, which was made out of plywood and somehow attached to the side of the rail bridge. We never went in there. I think structure collapse was the least of the issues. Every couple of weeks the police would come along and smash it with large hammers and then buy some jerk chicken (honest, they'd do a raid, and have lunch from the same place, but it was really good jerk chicken).

But that was all nothing compared to the pub on the corner, a delight called The Maypole. They really did the thing where everything goes silent when you walk in. And then they stayed that way. I finished my drink, my wife pulling my arm to try and make me leave. Everyone just sat there and silently stared at us. It was quite terrifying.

Well, we never went back, and had a happy moment watching it being knocked down a few years later so they put up some flats as the first wave of gentrification hit. I suspect some of the locals were still inside.

[Hot Flatus]

Whilst riding a JoGLE, in 2006, my riding partner and I entered the village of Loggerheads, not far from Stoke on Trent.  Looking around we realised it was one of those places where everyone has given up.  Literally everyone. You could see it in their eyes and the way they moved.

But we were hungry so we pulled up to The Loggerheads pub, locked our bikes, went in for food, walked straight back out and rode off.

It's not that The Loggerheads was bad or anything, it was just that we couldn't be bothered.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Is there any part of Alfreton that is not a dive?

(Is The Specials 'Ghost Town' modelled on it?)

That was Coventry, AFAIK.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I just think they're a relic of a bygone age, along with the Butcher, Baker and Greengrocer from the high street.

My local high street has three good butchers, two excellent bakers and three fine greengrocers, not to mention a couple of fishmongers - all small, independent, family-run concerns and all thriving, as far as I can tell, with or without the patronage of cycling hippies.

It also has several excellent pubs, as well as two superb independent off licences.

nicknack - it also has a cake shop, but you probably knew that already. And two old-fashioned sweet shops.

d.

We've only got one butcher and one fishmonger along with our two excellent bakers and three fine greengrocers but we do have a bookshop (admittedly it's a charity bookshop but it is a good one) and, party piece, a launderette which doubles as a live music venue.

And several pubs.

[Mr Larrington]

I just think they're a relic of a bygone age, along with the Butcher, Baker and Greengrocer from the high street.

My local high street has three good butchers, two excellent bakers and three fine greengrocers, not to mention a couple of fishmongers - all small, independent, family-run concerns and all thriving, as far as I can tell, with or without the patronage of cycling hippies.

It also has several excellent pubs, as well as two superb independent off licences.

nicknack - it also has a cake shop, but you probably knew that already. And two old-fashioned sweet shops.

d.

We've only got one butcher and one fishmonger along with our two excellent bakers and three fine greengrocers but we do have a bookshop (admittedly it's a charity bookshop but it is a good one) and, party piece, a launderette which doubles as a live music venue.

And several pubs.

• Three good butchers, two fine chandlers, an indoor pool and a first-class cake shop.
• OFSTED plaudits, envy of the Fens.
• Prick barriers at both ends.
• Etc.