Abingdon Pub Explorations

Staying local for a trip to the Oxfordshire town of Abingdon in a May heat wave.
My plan was to visit somewhere a little bit different and include a few pubs that haven't appeared on the blog before.  In fact, I'll wager a couple of these haven't appeared on any blog ever.

I bucked my conventional start to the day by not rocking up at Wetherspoon's at 11am.
Instead, I caught the number 35 bus from Oxford to Abingdon which takes the long way round over the speed bumps of Kennington, taking me to the village of Radley.

The Bowyer Arms (Foxborough Road, Radley, OX14 3AE)
Just around the corner from the train station, The Bowyer Arms is a mid-19th century pub that was owned by Morland from 1889 until 1999 when Greene King acquired the Ock Street brewery and their tied houses.
The pub is named after Sir George Bowyer, a barrister and Liberal politician who was born in Radley Hall and would later inherit the family estate.

The astroturf front garden didn't make for a great first impression, although I may not grumble about it if I was in charge of mowing the lawn.
Inside, this is a large open-plan pub where everything looks shiny and recently refurbished.
Two banks of handpumps on the bar served 4 different beers: those below (albeit you'd have to wait patiently for the Speckled Hen while it's "conditioning'), plus a Grrene King seasonal around the corner.

The chap in front of me ordered an Abbot and Retired Martin's words of advice - "pint of the last one pulled" - nagged at me, the fear that a couple of days of +30℃ temps would add to cask jeopardy.
As it was, the chap returned returned his Abbot as "not tasting right", so instead I picked the Greene King 'Hopping Special'.  Hoppy, yet not particularly special, but - crucially - in good condition a decent first beer of the day.

I stuck inside whilst most of the midweek lunchtime custom opted for the rear patio and garden.
Music just a notch too low for me to hear properly; tennis on a the TV screens that you'd struggle to get very far away from; nothing much happened.

I drank up in time to catch the 12:50 bus from close by the pub into Abingdon centre.
Then made my way straight to a new pub...

The Earl of Abingdon (21-27 Ock Street, Abingdon, OX14 5AJ)
"Pub" in the non-traditional sense, although there are Spoon's buildings that match this for not being especially photogenic.
The square block Croxeter Building houses a gym on the first floor and previously featuring Strattons nightclub beneath.  That's been closed since 2012, now given a new lease of life as an unexpected new drinking establishment that'll be handy for those waiting at the nearby bus stops.

It is run by the folks who previously looked after The Grapes, a pub that's presently being refurbished.  Which perhaps gives it a ready-made following of half-a-dozen loyal lunchtime customers.

There were two hand pumps on the bar, one turned around and the other serving a most welcome Harvey's 'Sussex Best'.
It came with a generous head and a Red Stripe glass...

The jukebox was throwing out some interesting tunes including Maisie Peters, a Dylan sound-a-like, a Franz Ferdinand deep cut, and Bryan Ferry.  But one of the fellassitting at the bar cut Bryan's crooning short when he ambled over to select his own tracks.  "Oldies," he informed me as he passed by.  Hmmm...oldies from Tarantino movies rather than obscure delights.

Time to leave before Stealers Wheel ineviatbly came on.
I made the short walk to the ancient bridge over the Thames which marks the southern edge of Abingdon town centre and handily has a pub midway along it.

The Nags Head on the Thames (The Bridge, Abingdon, OX14 3HX)
I've watched the Nags Head go through a few incarnations since my arrival in Oxford and spent several pleasant afternoons in the island beer garden when they've put on small festivals.  It used to be a Good Beer Guide mainstay but has dropped out for three of the past four years.
They'd made a ploy to impress those CAMRA folks who like a lot of choice, with an ambitious six different cask ales on the bar - two from Brakspear (whose Pub Co have owned the Nags since 2019), a local Lovebeer 'OG', Tim Taylor Landlord, and - my pick - Thornbridge 'Wild Swan'.

  

There are several traditional seating sections on the road-level bit of the pub where the bar counter is.  Steps down lead to a clearly defined dining area, then doors take you outside across a foot bridge to a wide selection of outdoor tables with riverside views.  Even more choice, as I spied a Hook Norton ale on the garden bar.

My 'Wild Swan' was a very light-bodied and light-coloured 3.4% pale ale.  Served on good form and ideal for sunny afternoons.
 
Moving on, I decided to poke my head into the County Hall in the middle of the market place, an impressive building that houses the town museum.

I'm ashamed that I've not been in here before.  It's a small but fascinating little museum tracing the extensive history of Abingdon.  There's a car from the now-closed MG factory (hang on, how did they get that in there?!) and a few bits of Morland breweriana in a cabinet.
Part with £2 and you'll be allowed out onto the roof where the views over the town are well worth a couple of flights of stairs and a few coins.

From a brief cultural diversion to one of Oxfordshire's minor bits of pub heritage.
Right next door to the County Hall is the Punchbowl...

The Punchbowl (6 Market Place, Abingdon, OX14 3HG)
My advice would be to skip the basic front bar and enter via the brick alleyway around the side which provides a door into the Oak Room - the bit that causes the heritage interest.
An inn was first recorded on this site in 1775, the atmospheric snug being the bit of the pub which actually feels like it has a bit of history.
You get a chequered carpet, wood panelled walls, a few old brasses and ornaments, and an uneven ceiling of varying height.

The sole customer in the snug, propping up the bar, gave me a hearty welcome and called to the staff to tell them they had a customer.
This is a room with a small 'ring bell for service' counter , unspoilt by any giant beer fonts, although the bright orange clock to the side seems a little out of place.

The real ale choice was Morland 'Original' or Boddington's best bitter.
"Of course, when you say Boddington's what you really mean is a pint of J.W. Lees these days," said my fellow drinker, showing he knows a thing or two.
Not a bad pint at all - probably the best I'd had so far on this day.

Leaving the snug, I continued down East St Helens Street which takes you to the church and a short stretch of riverside road on which you'll find the Old Anchor. 

The Old Anchor (1 St Helen's Wharf,, Abingdon, OX14 5EN)
Somewhat off the beaten track, this pub struggled for some time until Greene King opted not to renew the license when it expired in 2023.  It was nice to see it reopen in the summer of 2025, advertising quiz nights and live music and events which I do hope bring the punters in.

They weren't flocking in at the time I was visiting.  I was the only customer other than a lady rushing to the bar to check the parking restrictions on the street outside.
(Ideally: strictly no parking in front of any pub anywhere, cars having spoilt many a pub photo).

The Village People sang "In the Navy" when I arrived - a nautical theme for the Anchor, I guess.
A fairly steep £2.85 brought me a half of the Loose Cannon 'Abingdon Bridge', promptly returned as undrinkable for a no-quibble exchange for an 'Old Speckled Hen'.

The current Old Anchor was opened in 1884 when three houses were remodelled to house it, a previous incarnation of the pub having existed close-by directly on the river.
The main bar and two side rooms have a modern feel to them, but there is a little gem of a seating area to the right, on the way to the patio.

Too much of a thoroughfare to be a snug, but containing some marvellous wooden bench seating and flagstone floor.

I was nearing the end of my intinerary of pubs for the day, but was looking forward to the penultimate destination - a one-time community centre that is currently showing the top-score 3 pint pots rating on the CAMRA website.
To get there, I caught an Oxford-bound bus for the 5-minute trip into the greater estates of the town, hopping off at Boundary House, from whe the Croft Bar is a few minutes walk.

The Croft Bar (Lindsay Drive, Abingdon, OX14 2RT)
I've passed here before when visiting the nearby GK College Oak, but wasn't convinced it was really open to the public at the time.  The Croft started out as a community centre and certainly has a 'club' vibe to it, with function room style furniture and a crowd of folk who all seem to know one another.
There was a no-nonsense cask line-up: trad bitter, big brand golden ale, or the common-round-these-parts Loose Cannon 'Abingdon Bridge'.

I figured I should have something from the Abingdon brewery whilst in town, so handed over my £3.50 (Thursday cask special) for a pint of 'Abingdon Bridge'.
The staff member took my name and phone number for entry into a prize draw for a £50 bar tab.  I should really have declined and stayed anonymous, being as a Croft regular really needs to win and enjoy that tab.

I took my pint to the cushioned bench seating in the quieter side.  Several Killers tracks followed one another on the playlist, there were lots of blokes in shorts, and a future Luke Littler threw darts at a board with a golf course cover over it, making it more colourful and taking away the need for any maths.

Just one more quick beer in the bus stop pub...

Boundary House (69 Oxford Road, Abingdon, OX14 2AA)
I haven't set foot into this Greene King hostelry for quite some time and it looks like they've undergone a big makeover and changed a fair bit in recent years.
There's another MG link here, with the building previously being the home of Cecil Kimber who founded the motor company.  It turned into a pub in 1960 in readiness for the big housing estates that would take over adjoining farmland.  Abingdon is still expanding to this day, although there isn't a pub in sight to serve any of the 21st century housing developments.

On the bar, if you can make them out hiding behind the hops, were three real ales from Greene King and Sambrook's.

You don't see London-brewer Sambrook's out this way very often, so that's what I ordered.  Another beer in decent condition - the vast majority of cellars seemed to have coped with the hot temps fairly well.

And with that, it was time to head for the bus and make my way back to Oxford.
Six of Abingdon's eighteen-or-so pubs (depending on how you're counting), plus the Radley outlier covered on this visit.

A Leeds Pub, Bar, and Brewery Tap Excursion

Day three of the Road Trip took us from our Halifax base to the metropolitan thrills of Leeds.

Forty minutes on a Northern rail service which was busy but still had just enough seats at Halifax for us all to sit down.
Available seats would be essential if (just theoretically) any of the group, maybe Tanya for example, had been in the Victorian Beer Cafe until after midnight quaffing craft ale and was feeling a little worse for wear.

Our first challenge on arrival was to navigate the never-ending 'improvement' works in front of Leeds station and find a way to get to the lower level.  We trekked under the bridge and into the southern part of the city in search of a Beer Guide regular Heritage pub.

Grove Inn (Back Row, Holbeck, Leeds, LS11 5PL)
Being as we arrived early and it's located a little way out of the centre we initially had the place to ourselves.
Not a bad traditional pub to find yourself able to poke your head into all of the rooms without disturbing anyone.

The Grove dates back to 1832 but the layout we see today was the responsibility of John Smith's of Tadcaster, who updated the place to create a central corridor with four rooms leading off it.  There's a comfy snug to the right of the entrance, benches and red carpet spoilt a bit by the phone charging machine in the corner.  To the left is a tap room with bar counter, or you can order from the counter on the corridor which has a second bank of hand pumps.

There was a difficult beer choice to start the day: eight cask ales available from Abbeydale, Wensleydale, Small World, Daleside, Timothy Taylor, Acorn and Rudgate.  I finally plumped for the sweet and fruity Acorn 'Plum Porter', taken through to the central snug with its rounded plain wooden benches hugging the walls.

The largest space, the rear concert room with small stage in one corner, is a slightly more recent addition, being an inter-war construction.
It's still historic enough for me and offers up some excellent pub bench seating...

A 10-minute amble took us westbound, past the spectacular-looking Temple Works building, to the Northern Monk Refectory.

The Northern Monk Refectory (The Old Flax Store, Marshalls Mill, Holbeck, Leeds, LS11 9YJ)
The taproom is located upstairs with glimpses through big windows to shiny brewing equipment en-route.  It's a bright modern room with small merch stall to one side, high and low solid bench seating, sofas under one window.  Birthday party in the middle, brewery tour folk loitering by the bar, Franz Ferdinand 'Do You Wanna' playing through the speakers.

The more adventurous stuff, and a couple of those Patron Project collaboration concoctions were on draft, whilst there were three beers on cask ('Eternal' session IPA, 'Sup' golden ale and one just being pulled through went we arrived).

I went for the keg 'Chocolate Caramel and Biscuit Porter', a rich dark 5.2% brew priced at £3.35 for the sensible half pint measure.  A pleasant visit, although I'd rather be sitting on a rickety bench next to a conditioning tank in a brewery rather than in such a smart bar, given a choice.

Next up, the Midnight Bell...

Midnight Bell (101 Water Lane, Holbeck, Leeds, LS11 5QN)
Bonus points for having John Farnham 'You're the Voice' playing on arrival.
Sadly I could find little else in the Midnight Bell which warranted my imaginary bonus points - a dining dominated affair which wasn't as a good as I'd hoped.  I don't really approve of anywhere which has every table set up for food and requires you to park your pint of beer between knives and forks.

Still, I was here to ensure I drank some Leeds Brewery beer whilst in Leeds. And that was a success, with four of their ales as well as Cameron's 'Strongarm' and Keighley 'Three Swords' on offer.

A swift Leeds 'Best' was my pick.

We crossed back over the River Aire into the recently redeveloped area betwixt railway lines and waterways.  I suspect this area was probably run-down and grim not so long ago, but now it's a hotbed of hotels, eateries and bars along a pedestrianised walkway.
We were aiming for an Ossett bar in the arches.

The Hop (Granary Wharf, Dark Neville St, City Centre, Leeds, LS1 4BR)
The Hop is bigger than your average railway arch venue due to the fact that these arches stretch back a long way underneath the multiple lines serving the platforms of Leeds station.  Plus the Hop occupies two of 'em.
This proved not to be the usual quiet lunchtime visit due to a festival event running across several of the Granary Wharf venues.  We entered to a sizeable crowd of folk and a lively one-man band set up on the first floor above the bar.

There were eight hand pumps, serving all your favourite Ossett ales from the paleness of 'Excelsius' to the darkness of 'Barghest Stout'.
Plus a new one of the 'Rat' series for me, from Huddersfield's Rat Brewery, part of the Ossett empire since 2004.

This was a tasty, biscuity, tropical pale ale, similar to 'White Rat', but not quite scaling the same heights.  We perched on a ledge to one side where a window in the brickwork provides a view through to the ground level 'cellar'.  Yep, they've gone to the trouble to put on live entertainment and myself and John were glued to a window studying barrels and pipes. 

Moving on from The Hop, we back-tracked on ourselves a little way, because there's a bar somewhere in that there tower...

SALT Granary Wharf (Candle House, Granary Wharf, City Centre, Leeds, LS1 4GJ)
SALT are another Yorkshire brewery with Ossett links - this time as a sister brewery with both under the ownership of a chap called Jamie Lawson.  This bar is one of three SALT venues in Leeds, this one pairing your craft brews with falafel.

I skipped the cask options (more Ossett) and opted for one of the SALT beers on draft - 'Vermont XPA' a 4.7% pale brewed with Topaz hops.  Just a half, which is just as well because I didn't enjoy it very much.  Far too fizzy for my liking.
Participating in the same weekend festival as Hop, Granary Wharf was between musical acts and packed with punters in the modern circular surroundings.  Good for SALT, pulling in such a decent crowd and pouring the drinks at a rate of knots.

We'd burnt off the calories from the Wetherspoon's breakfast by this point and were in need of some mid-afternoon sustenance.
For that we called into the Adelphi (3 - 5 Hunslet Road, Leeds, LS10 1JQ)
This glorious pub was included in my 2023 heritage pubs of Leeds post, so I'll skip over it this time.

Except to include this picture of my Kirkstall 'Three Swords' beer, being as I'm rather pleased with it.

The old Tetley brewery, a short walk from the Adelphi, was serving as an art gallery and cafe when I visited a couple of years ago, allowing me to take a moments break from the pubs to frown at some modern art on the first floor.
The gallery has gone for the time being, the ground floor now converted into a pub by Kirkstall Brewery.

The Tetley (The Tetley, Hunslet Rd, Leeds LS10 1JQ)
Joshua Tetley brought the land for his brewery for £400 and founded the company in 1822.  In the 1960's Tetley's merged with Ind Coope of Burton and Ansell's of Birmingham, becoming Allied Breweries - the country's biggest producers of cask ale by the 1980's, at which time they employed around 1,000 people at the Leeds brewery.  Brewing continued after a 1998 amalgamation with Carlsberg, but eventually came to an end in June 2011.

Most of the huge site has been redeveloped.  The central admin offices and reception building that we were heading to was once dwarfed by a larger block and chimney behind it, goods vehicle entrance to the side.
The bar is now to the left of the entrance, staff scurrying around to set up a function on the other side of the building when we arrived.
It's a spacious place, gloriously decorated with ample beery pictures and display cases of breweriana.

There were several cask ales on offer, but...we're in the Tetley brewery building.   We had to drink the rejuvenated Tetley Best, even if it's now brewed 80+ miles away.

Time for something a little bit different...

Northern Guitars (41 Call Lane, City Centre, Leeds, LS1 7BT)
On a very lively street, this opened as a guitar shop in 1991, then morphed into a bar and music venue in 2015.  You can still buy your six-stringed instruments upstairs which remains as a shop.  They haven't butchered all their stock to make the door handles...

It's a cracking little place.
There were a handful of tables at the front of the ground floor, one-step up to a stage area in the corner by the window, bar counter to the back of the room

Five hand pumps offered us a choice of Ilkley 'Lotus', Saltaire 'Blonde', Timothy Taylor 'Landlord', plus 'Three Swords' or 'BYB' from the local Kirkstall Brewery. 
The 5.9% 'Lotus' for me - a proper IPA, in good condition.

There is plenty of musical decoration, especially as you head upstairs where walls are covered in gig posters and displays of old concert tickets (remember those?).
A hairy & youthful Prop Up the Bar was at Donnington Park in a heavily-patched denim jacket for that Monsters of Rock show.  You couldn't pick a much less 'monstrous' line-up of rock bands if you tried. 

 

I left the other members of the group finishing drinks in Northern Guitars, planning to catch up with them in Whitelocks.
I'd spied a recently opened brewery tap in a railway arch and couldn't resist poking my head in.

Crown Street Tap (5 Cherry Tree Walk, City Centre, Leeds, LS2 7EB)
This is fledgling railway arch pub ticking, the tap only having opened in November 2025.
It's run by Talking Tides Brew Co., a relatively new operation that started brewing in 2022 on the North Yorkshire coast.
It's brightly lit with the arch-size glass frontage, furniture a mix of high and low light wood tables within, a big crowd attracted by somewhere relatively new.
Two hand pumps served Talking Tides 'Headland' and 'Yorkshire Best' whilst there was a wider choice on keg.

Just a half of 'Yorkshire Best' for me - not my favourite beer today - an "is it past best or do I just not like it" conundrum.

Draining my beer, I made a short walk through side-streets to reach a bar which has been a Good Beer Guide regular for the past few years, yet eluded me when I was last in Leeds.

Wapentake (92 Kirkgate, Leeds, LS2 7DJ)
On a busy city centre street, Wappentake is a characterful bar with wooden floorboards and mismatched furniture.  A bit of Erykah Badu on the stereo when I arrived, a hubbub of conversation from a crowd of gentlefolk.
Cask on the bar was Five Points 'Best' or Theakston's 'Old Peculiar'.  I didn't fancy the best and it had been too long a day to indulge in Old Peculiar, so I went rogue with a cask Celtic Marches cider.  Which was actually refreshing and a bit of sweetness that the palate was calling out for.

And what's a wapentake?
It's "an archaic administrative and judicial subdivision of certain English counties (primarily in the North and Midlands, such as Yorkshire and Lincolnshire)."
So now you know.

My companions had been forced to skip Whitelocks, declaring it ridiculously busy, so were instead just a few strides down the road from me in the Duck & Drake.

Another revisit for me, having spent an evening here watching live bands when I was last in Leeds.  On that occasion my bed was a 5-minute stumble down the road - no repeat late evening in the Duck & Drake this time with my bed being 15-miles away.
Just time to admire the ceramics in the gents WC again and enjoy a half of Yorkshire Heart 'Blonde'.

We finished in somewhere completely different - not on your average Leeds pub crawl...

We were here to enable one of our number to say hello to a Leeds-based family member, who in turn was checking out one of the live bands playing that evening.
I bowled in to find a crowd of folk enjoying the last couple of songs by Northwich rockers Airtight - they sounded great, but I've no idea what they looked like from my vantage point at the back of the room.
Don't they make people tall these days?

Unsurprisingly, not on a stronghold for cask ale from Yorkshire micro brewers.  Northern Monk's 'Faith' was the most tempting offer.

I would have quite liked to have stuck around and seen all the bands on the bill - live entertainment free of charge is not to be sneezed at.  But we needed to make a move and aim for a Halifax-bound train.
Hells bells - the walk through the centre past Leeds Saturday night revellers was a sight to behold!