The village pub

On Thursday we finally got down to our revamped village pub. It is with great relief I discovered that one bar area remained just that, a pub. No one armed bandits. No big screens. It was also good to see at least one familiar face still behind the bar.

The restaurant has grown considerably, making it a pleasant place to potentially eat, unlike the rather echoey dingy old restaurant. What was the cellar has now been opened up into another seating area, though this is not really accessible to me as it one step down through a rather narrow arch – a bit tight for a wheelchair.

Indeed the access was my main adverse criticism. There were only two tables that were really accessible with a wheelchair in the bar area. The other tables were too closely packed to get through with a chair or down the step.

I was pleased to see one acquaintance was still allowed to bring in her dog - under proper control of course.

The outside has been massively improved. There seems to be more seating, some of it comfortable looking. There is now a pizza hut too. The access has been improved with a wide gateway & a good paved path to the seating areas rather than the muddy path through some very uneven scrappy grass.

By the looks of the pictures on their website the bedrooms look very comfortable. We were joined by a friend. As he lives just a few houses away from the pub, he’d been invited to a pre-official opening party & tour of the alterations. He confirmed how good it did look upstairs. And there is one accessible room downstairs for wheelchair users.

All in all it looks as though the work had been done well. On Thursday it was heaving. We suspect many were there out of curiosity to see the changes – rather like us in other words. Being a sunny day & the garden area being rather nice now also encouraged day trippers to stay.

The prices of drinks do seem to have gone up a lot, presumably to pay for all these changes. 50p extra is one thing, over £1 seems a bit much! Still I dare say we will be back. It is by far the nicest pub in Heysham – the others are full of big screens or essentially a stopping place while waiting for the ferries.