Worksop - Stopping the Lions Roaring

Another glamorous away trip with Oxford City in the National League North, this time into North Notts for a bank holiday Monday fixture against Worksop Town.

Worksop is called home by around 44,700 folk who get to enjoy being from the same place as Bruce Dickinson, John Parr, Donald Pleasance and one-time England manager Graham Taylor.
It's the gateway to the Dukeries, handy for Clumber Park and the Welbeck Estate, although the old mining town itself hasn't yet become a cultural hotspot.

I'm following my usual protocol and starting in (a very red) Spoons.

The Liquorice Rooms (1A Newcastle Street, Worksop, S80 2AS)
Apparently the name derives from liquorice being widely grown around Worksop during the town's agricultural days, rather than sweet treats being manufactured here.
Opened in 2002, this branch of Wetherspoon's is located in what was once an ironmongers.

But forget what it looks like or what it used to be - the issue of the day was the lack of breakfasts! 
Delivery issues - fridge freezer breakdowns?  Who knows - they could offer little except porridge, an avocado muffin or scrambled eggs on toast.  It would have been handy to print off an explanation and note of what items were available to take the pressure off the staff, as a succession of folks returned from the bar disappointed.

Oh well, just a half of the Welbeck Abbey 'Portland Black' for me (Wolf 'Granny Wouldn't Like It' being the other guest beer).  That locally brewed dark porter was delicious and served on good form.

I'm unlikely to be taken on as an ambassador for Visit Worksop.
I did find a good hardware store...

Looks like there was a bit of paint left over from the Wetherspoons job.

The old council offices are an architectural gem, now repurposed as retailers of vintage stuff...

There are some cracking pub signs without pubs to go with them...

 

There are lots of signs of closed pubs - a 2023 article on the Worksop Guardian looks at "27 pubs we've loved and lost over the years".  Twenty-seven!  It's not that big a place.
Of the ones remaining, the CAMRA website shows many listed as 'no cask ale'.
But they've got a top class beer bar and you don't even have to leave the train station to visit it.

The Mallard (Station Approach, Worksop, S81 7AG)
Right in the centre of the station buildings in what used to be a buffet room, the Mallard is a super little pub where I could happily have passed the afternoon.
The striking Jacobean-style railway building was built at the turn of the last century replacing the previous structure.  The ale bar was opened within it in 2001, recently having celebrated 25 years (with a beer festival, how else?).

They offered a couple of boxed ciders, a Kirkstone keg beer, big-name lagers, and four cask ales: Marble 'Draft', Stocks 'Old Horizontal', Bang the Elephant Pop Goes the Weasle' or Pentrich 'Ether Elemental'.  A great - and 75% strong - range.

 

The Bang the Elephant stout was sweet and moreish.  The Stocks old ale was simply superb - a revived recipe from an '80s Doncaster brewery, now concocted at Welbeck Abbey.  

The Mallard has a total of 6 tables, all filling up shortly after my arrival, with a fair few folk opting to sit out front.  There's no music and a no-phone's policy which was enforced for the one chap making a call, whilst taking pics of pump clips and scoring your beers on Untappd appeared to be okay.

Cask ale seemed to be the order of the day.  A French bulldog became best friends with anyone who ordered the homemade sausage rolls.  The chat flowed and the Mallard was quite marvellous.

Right, let's have a look at the Station Hotel, just on the other side of the road.

The Station Hotel (Carlton Road, Worksop, S80 1PS)
The front door took me into a long lounge bar with chequered carpet, some brightly coloured armchairs, grey paint-job, and modern light fittings and decorations.  There were around a dozen folk in the bar, the big restaurant billed as 'Platform 3' sitting empty in the next room - I've rarely found bank holiday Monday's good for pubs.

The Station Hotel offered two cask ales - a Bradfield 'Farmers Cherry Beer' and Abbeydale 'Moonshine', three other hand pumps unused.

In the interests of trying new stuff, it had to be the garishly coloured cherry beer - at least the jam jar let you know what you were letting yourself in for.  

I had time for one more pub visit in Worksop before making my way to the ground, so headed right back down south to pop my head into the Shireoaks Inn.

The Shireoaks Inn (Westgate, Worksop, S80 1LT)
Shireoaks is a nearby village where the first of Worksop's collieries opened in 1859, paving the way for more mining in the region.  This pub, converted from an old row of cottages, has had a relatively recent refurb (by the same folks who run the Station Inn).

Always trust a pub with a handy set of steps propped against the wall...
But beware of those with West Ham memorabilia....

Although the laminated pudding menu is a good sign...

 

They do usually serve one cask ale, but the landlord apologised that this wasn't ready yet, having already anticipated that's what I'd be looking for being as he'd spotted me in the Station earlier.
So, a Stones bitter it was...

Okay, so the Shireoaks wasn't about to challenge for my favourite pub of the day, but the welcome was good and it had attracted a reasonable lunchtime crowd of diners and a few folks seemingly engrossed in a rerun of a Sunday Premier League match on TV.

Right - time to head to the football ground, the bustle of activity in the vicinity and the very pleasing signage confirming I'd got the date and time right.

 

The Windsor Stadium - KC Sofas Stadium, if we must - is a neat little National League North ground with a decent retro covered seating stand along half one side of the pitch and plenty of terraces with protection from the elements.  The turnstiles are ultra-modern, part of the relatively new clubhouse which contains changing rooms, an award winning bar and a shortage of toilet facilities for the 672 in attendance.

The first half was an entertaining affair with action at both ends of the pitch and some good chances missed or denied by the linesman's flag.

A decent away support for Oxford relocated at half time to a covered stand by the corner flag and made a fair bit of noise when Scott Pollock broke the deadlock.  Then grumbled to the referee when a goal from a corner was ruled out for a foul on the keeper.  Then directed outright fury at the poor fella when he sent off Tyrone Marsh for a dubious second yellow.
"Worksop's man of the match is," boomed the stadium announcer..."Referee Jonathan Chadwick" quipped a City supporter.

In the hunt for an equaliser, Worksop were running the endless mile (yes - I'm desperate to squeeze in a John Parr reference, even though no-one knows anything except St Elmo's Fire).  But in the end, Oxford City saw the game out comfortably and created several chances to increase the lead despite being a man down.

A win for my local team - leaving them 3rd in the table.
Despite no Spoons breakfast, some dodgy characters in the town, someone driving around playing Limp Bizkit at top volume with the windows open, and a shortage of cask pubs, I'd had a rather nice day in Worksop.

All Points East 2026

The August 2026 instalment of my annual standing in a park watching noisy bands series.  PropUptheBar was off to Victoria Park for the Outbreak day at All Points East.
But before frazzling my brain and making my ears ring, a few pubs and bars were in order.

My day started with 'Spoons - a line I should just cut and paste for 50% of the blog posts.

Goldengrove (146-148 The Grove, Stratford, E15 1NS)
This time in the heart of Stratford, the pub with a respectable hanging basket display and pavement seating where you can watch the multi-lane road junction.
This is a relatively early JDW, opened in 1993 as the chain was expanding throughout the capital.  It has graced the Good Beer Guide in the past, but coffee or Carlsberg was the order of the day from a decent midday Sunday crowd

The 'Cowcatcher' American pale from East London Brewing Co. was my pick.
A bit flat and dull, probably because of the lack of use the hand pump was getting, but drinkable and who am I to complain at £2.40 a pint in London.
The outdoor space to the back and side of the Goldengrove looked good, although I opted to sit inside and watch the coffee machine break down and people complaining about dirty cutlery.

When I wasn't taking really poor pictures of carpets and knees, I was tenuously sketching out a mini-crawl of Stratford pubs.  But this was instantly kyboshed when I walked to the GBG-listed Old Black Bull and found it closed in contradiction to opening hours online.
So I set my sights on Hackney Wick instead, under-taking the West Ham walk...

Hackney Wick was once an area of derelict factories and auto repair shops that few folks would have cause to come to.  It's changed a bit.
I visited Crate when it first opened here in 2012 with the smart new Olympic buildings having been constructed across the other side of the canal.  Fourteen years later, with the West Ham crowds descending each matchday and general gentrification demanding old run down areas have brewery taps and cool bars, Hackney Wick is alive with colourful graffiti and hipster vibes.

Crate looked busy, but just around the corner, Howling Hops was still getting going on a Sunday afternoon, a handful of folks outside, inside practically empty.

Howling Hops Tank Bar (Unit 9 Queens Yard, White Post Lane, Hackney Wick, E9 5EN)
Howling Hops began life in the cellar of Hackney's marvellous Cock Tavern in 2012.  They soon outgrew that space and moved three years later to the 'Wick, setting up in an old brick warehouse. 
The main bar is 10-meters long, beer poured direct from a run of 10 tanks lining the back of it.

I picked the Howling Hops 'Shadow Boxer', a 5.1% brown ale, other options including a sour, a Dortmunder pilsner and several varieties of tropical and hoppy pale ales.
You ideally need lots of folks on those long benches.  So, a little bit lacking in atmosphere on this occasion, but I did have a superb beer and I had Cedric Im Brookes belting out 'Give Rasta Glory' in the background, so all was fine.

A short walk past the station took me to the current Good Beer Guide entry, the taproom for online retailers Beer Merchants.

Beer Merchants Tap (99 Wallis Road, Hackney Wick, E9 5LN)
Opened in 2018, this is real world manifestation of the 'great beer to your door' website store.  
Where you get the opportunity to bust your budget perusing fridges full of cans and bottles to take away or drink in, as well as having plenty of stunning draft options from 20 keg lines. There are a couple of handpumps, just one of these in action on my visit, serving Beak 'Luma' table beer. 

At £7.25 a pint for a 3.5% hazy pale, I'd rapidly increased in beer cost since my start in Spoons.  But the beer was good, served in decent condition, with a pick of the quiet benches inside the old warehouse space, or a seat in the sunny yard outside.
I somehow resisted the temptation of the 16% imperial stout on draft.

I'd heartily recommend a visit to Beer Merchants.  A great beer list.  Possibly best tackled when you don't have a day at a music festival ahead of you.

There are plenty of other spots to eat and drink here, but none quite as stand-out colourful as the Lord Napier.

The Lord Napier (25 White Post Lane, Hackney Wick, Homerton, E9 5EN)
Go back in time and this pub would have served as a local for the factory workers when this bit of the city was a hive of industry.  What would those drinkers think if they could be transported into the future: seeing it full of hip young folk, painted colourfully, featuring a karaoke room and roof garden, with weird beer that costs an-arm-and-a-leg?  Not a lot, probably.
Opened in 1868, it spent most of it's years as an Ind Coope house.  It sat boarded-up and un-loved from 1995 until it was resurrected in 2021.
A Five Points pump clip was turned around, so I opted for the local Neckstamper 'Bluffer' on keg.

I'm glad I paid the Lord Napier a visit, but suspect I may have liked it more in the 1980s with a Double Diamond in front of me.

The nearby pedestrian flyover took me across the A2 and into Victoria Park, skirting the barriers which made up the back of the music festival site.
Gate opening times seemed a little too close to the first bands of the day and I didn't fancy shuffling through a big queue, hence the short diversion to a trad pub in the side-streets.

The Eleanor Arms (460 Old Ford Road, Bow, E3 5JP)
Being one of the closest pubs to Victoria Park, this was doing a roaring trade with festival goers, the old-boy propping up the end of the bar eying the invasion of blokes in black band t-shirts with suspicion.
It's a cracking old two-roomed pub with pool table in the back and a few surviving period features, including some lovely wood panelling.

Sadly, the influx of customers didn't mean they were racing through the barrels of real ale.  I ordered some Tayto crisps and an East London Brewing Co. 'Foundation' (the alternative being a Southwark 'Mayflower').  In ropey condition, almost in as poor a form as the Aston Villa team being hammered by Brighton on TV.

Right...let's get into that festival...

Through the gates remarkably easily with no queue, no phone mishaps retrieving my ticket, and nothing setting off the metal detectors.
I headed straight into the big tent to watch San Francisco blackgaze metallers Deafheaven.  

You'll be wanting to see a picture of Liam's son Gene Gallagher playing one of the smaller stages...

And you'll be wanting to see my favourite t-shirt of the day (although with something in the region of 3,000 Deftones shirts, competition was thin on the ground)...

And you'll be wanting to see the beer list...
If you weren't put off this festival by my mention of 'blackcore metallers', you will be once you see the beverage prices.

Much less 'craft' than what I'd gotten used to at Wide Awake festival for the past couple of years.  Madri possibly not 'excepcional' enough to warrent costing 5p short of eight quid.
At least there were a couple of interesting alternatives, the 'Space Hops' by Beyond Belief the one that caught my eye.

But...hells bells...that frothy head of indeterminate size within a cardboard cup is irritating when handing over £8.25 for a 'pint'.
Talking of hells bells, I was off to watch punk-rockers Amyl & the Sniffers who've been credited with taking the baton from AC/DC as Australia's prino heavy-riffin' rabble-rousers.

Yet I enjoyed old favourites Idles more.
A band I've now seen three times - each and every one of them in Victoria Park.  I'm led to believe they do play in other places.

I didn't catch nearly as many bands as I intended to, the heat and the swirling dust blowing up from what was once grass making it less appealing to be racing from one end of the site to the other.
The day ended watching Deftones from a distance, then a march to Mile End station and the painful Oxford Tube bus trip home.  At which point the pre-festival pub crawl seemed like a much more foolhardy idea than it had done at 11am.

Spalding - Never Mind the Tulips

Saturday 15th August: The football season was getting underway for most of the 72 league clubs, Reading and Luton providing the early-kick off 7-goal thriller.  Don't expect the same excitement from the billion pound Prem teams when they get going next weekend.
It was already week 2 for the National League North and I was on the road to attend Oxford City FCs first away game of 26/27 in the southern reaches of Lincolnshire.

Spalding sits in the Fens between Peterborough and Boston, is home to just over 30,000 folks, famous for tulips and pumpkins.
Wetherspoon's would inevitably be my first port of call being as it's in the 2026 Good Beer Guide and I was arriving early and am quite partial to a second breakfast. 
Forget mobility scooters outside pubs.  This was parked outside the Ivy Wall...

Sadly the pub itself is less photogenic than the horse and cart.  The glass-fronted affair will disappoint anyone hoping for an ancient market town building or a wall of ivy for that matter.

The Ivy Wall (18-19 New Rd, Spalding PE11 1DQ)

Inside, it's one of those long narrow 'Spoons with lines of regimented tables and the bar towards the back.  I reckon Tim Martin himself would be hard-pushed to identify some of the locations if faced with 'Where in the World of Spoons Am I' contest. 

There is a separate room to the back which was proving popular for families with pushchairs, plus an outdoor patio where a fair few customers had settled despite the overcast morning.
The search for something a little bit different ended in the smart toilets, where you get a glass-fronted display of no-lo beers to peruse whilst at the urinals.

The guest cask ales on my visit were Hadrian Borders 'Northumbrian Gold' or Ilkley 'Ruby Jane'.  The Northumbrian for me - a malty 4.5% ale, more brown than golden.

My breakfast wrap picture comes solely for the purpose of my continued grumble about the size of extra baked bean portions.  50/50 recently for me, as to whether £1.08 buys a decent size bowl or the thimble-sized ramekin.  Thimble-size in Spalding...

Moving on, a short stroll round to the market place took me to the Red Lion hotel, complete with 'Jimi Hendrix Stayed Here' blue plaque.

The Red Lion Hotel (Market Place, Spalding, PE11 1SU)
The Red Lion is a smart 18th century inn with a seating area in front of it providing people-watching opportunities in the heart of the town.  Hendrix's stay is the big claim-to-fame, his visit made during the Spring Bank Holiday in 1967 when the Barbeque '67 festival took place in the Tulip Bulb Hall.  Hendrix reputedly hung out in the hotel bar with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker, before sharing a bill with Geno Washington, Zoot Money, Cream, Pink Floyd and The Move, amongst others.  Tickets £1.

Passing the busy outdoor tables, the marvellous tiled flooring in the doorway makes for a good first impression...

Which just gets better...

A rare outlet for Bass in this area, apparently.
The building looks big from the outside, although the public bar just takes up the front room with seating either side of the door, a dining room glimpsed down a corridor beyond the check-in desk.
If you don't fancy the Bass, Sharpe's 'Cornish Best' or Black Sheep 'Best Bitter' were available. 

A good pint of Bass in a cracking pub.

With a fair number of 'No Cask Ale' venues in the town centre, the remaining place that I really wanted to visit was the Priors Oven, achieving top pint-pot marking scores on the CAMRA website.

The Priors Oven (1 Sheep Market, Spalding, PE11 1BH)
This was once part of the Priory of Spalding, the structure dating back to around 1230.  With its distinctive shape and vaulted ceiling, this bit of the building once served as a monastic prison, becoming a bakery in later years, then the first micropub in Lincolnshire in 2013.
It looks great, not needing many folks to fill it up with just four tables and a couple of stools at the bar.

There were three cask ales available: Humpty Dumpty 'Hathor' alongside 'New Mexico' pale ale or 'Dr Fox's Cunning Linctus' bitter, both brewed by local Tydd Steam. 
All priced at £4 a pint and served on gravity from casks behind the bar.
The cask coolers must have been doing their job throughout the recent hot weather, as the New Mexico was on great form - a crisp hoppy pale ale. 

With plenty of time on my hands, I strolled to the historic Ayscoughfee Hall which houses a small museum of local history and curios.  Well worth a visit.
The gardens to the rear of the house were playing host to a festival with music and games and deckchairs, but sadly Shake It Off Stage, the Taylor Swift tribute act at 15:40 clashed with the football.
Probably not a line-up which will go down in history like the Barbeque '67, so I departed for the peaceful environs of the River Welland.

The riverside walk took me past some grand Georgian houses and Dutch-style architecture, leading me to another pub about 10-minutes walk from the town centre.

The Moorings (123 Commercial Rd, Spalding PE11 2HD)
This one-time coal wharf used to be a boat hire centre from the late nineteenth century before being converted to a pub in the 1980's.
You get checked carpet, sofas and armchair and Notts County v Leicester City in the front room, the casual bit, then dining tables to the rear and side.
Fullers 'London Pride' or Timothy Taylor 'Golden Ale' on the bar.
Lots of cheery luncheon trade.

I  took my beer out onto the two-level decking at the rear of the pub, where the floating algae on the water beside me made it feel like we were moving on a boat and made me a little queasy.  Or perhaps that was the Golden Ale.  Not on the best of form.

🕝Two-thirty - time to head to Spalding United's Sir Halley Stewart Field and join the throngs at the turnstiles.

Spalding United were promoted via the play-offs from the Southern League last season.
They've spent a fair bit of money improving facilities during their rise to this level, including the installation of a smart 3G pitch.

The club bar served a cask Batemans 'XB', the converted shipping container served cheesy chips, and picnic tables provided a spot to sit in the afternoon sunshine awaiting kick-off.
Dropkick Murphy's, AC/DC and Guns 'n' Roses made up a rock soundtrack on the tannoy system.  Then someone gave a speech about this being the first game Spalding had hosted at this level of the football pyramid.
A bit like Tom Cruise before the World Cup final, but better.

I'd love to provide all the details of Tyrone Marsh's goal for Oxford on the 40th minute and the controversy surrounding it.  But that was the exact moment that I picked to pop to the loo.
Oxford City don't have enough travelling fans to provide a roar which can be heard in the gents, so I had no idea we'd gone 1-0 up until glancing at the scoreboard a few minutes later.

Spalding had enjoyed the lion's share of the ball during the first half and looked threatening, so it was tough on them to be behind at half time.

The second half was a bit more even, both sides creating some good chances, leading to an exciting finish and a few nerve-wracking moments for City when the ball bounced around the box and could have gone anywhere.
Not as exciting as seeing Britt Assombolonga come on for Harborough Town a few days later in a Tuesday night home fixture for Oxford, though.

Good luck to Spalding for the rest of the season.
The town had made for a top lower league away day - sunshine, Bass and tulips...what more can I ask for?