So onto the hostelries – after all what else can you do on a weekday night during a fuel crisis? Within yards of Hucknall train station, lies the Station Hotel.

Once part of the now defunct Home Brewery estate, the pub is still very much a local’s pub, with the landlord knowing most of his customers by name.

Pulling a proper pint!

A lounge, public bar, and off-sales hatch (a rarity nowadays), dispense just one cask ale, namely Home Bitter. Traditional pub games are also available.

Next stop, as you walk towards the market place, is one of my two favourite Hucknall pubs, the Plough and Harrow, on High St, incidentally the only one to survive ‘open-plan conversion’ in Hucknall!

A good basic boozer selling Hardys and Hansons Kimberley Mild and Kimberley Best Bitter, and light bar snacks.

Pulling a proper pint!

Originally the pubs' primary customers were miners, but in today’s pub climate it has had to adapt a little, with discos providing weekend entertainment, but its past is never far away.

The bar is decorated with plates depicting mining scenes of bygone years, complemented with other mining memorabilia scatted around the room. Darts, dominoes, and two Sunday League Football teams operate from the pub.

The Green Dragon, Watnall Rd, (just around the corner) is a medium-sized former Shipstones house. Although now open-plan inside with a pool table and a large satellite sports screen, the Dragon serves Theakstons Bitter and Marstons Pedigree, as well as reasonably priced meals.

Final stop is Hucknall’s newest pub, the Pilgrim Oak, High St., owned by the Wetherspoons chain. Its transformation in 1998, from an abandoned Co-op supermarket has been nothing short of excellent. And as with most Wetherspoons pubs, the Pilgrim Oak owes its name to a local landmark, in this case a tree in the grounds of Newstead Abbey, ancestral home of the Byron family.

The pub itself is very long with cubicle-style seating on either side and a non-smoking area to the rear.

Regular real ales available are Bass, Courage Directors and Theakstons Best Bitter, and four guests. And as with all Wetherspoons pubs there are no televisions or music. Meals are available all day, everyday, with curries being a speciality on certain weekday evenings.

Good health!

The Nottingham Drinker
Nottingham Drinker is the bi-monthly Nottingham CAMRA newsletter available free in over 150 outlets (pubs, libraries and tourist information centres in Nottingham and the surrounding areas).