Ye Olde White Harte, Hull

Situated down a narrow alleyway in the heart of the Old Town is Ye Olde White Harte, an historic 17th century pub and another one of the City’s famous old inns. The alleyway opens out into an attractive courtyard with colourful hanging flower baskets which is used for outdoor drinking. Here, a sturdy dark oak door leads into a room with plenty of dark wood panelling, ceiling beams, benches, subdued lighting and leaded stained glass windows. As we pass through this door, we see, immediately in front of us, an impressive wide staircase which leads to an upstairs restaurant – The Plotting Room – where, legend has it, on St Georges Day in 1642, the Governor of Hull and his henchmen resolved to deny King Charles 1ST entry to the City, thus starting off the English Civil War. The room downstairs is effectively two adjoining areas either side of the main door with a curved bar servery in each. The larger main bar area is on the right and is cosy and comfortable. A prominent feature is a large brick inglenook, large enough to have a seat on either side of the central fireplace contained within. Note the decorative tiling in both this and the other similar inglenook in the smaller bar area. The smaller bar counter on the left hand side is apparently only brought into use at busier times. Behind this bar, we see an encased skull, which was uncovered during restoration work in 1881. In summary, it’s a dark atmospheric interior which, despite the seemingly inevitable fruit machine and background music that one comes to regard as almost obligatory in a big pubco outlet, still has much of the feel of a pub of yesteryear about it. The pub is listed in CAMRA’s National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors. An interesting booklet on sale behind the bar gives us a full account of the pub’s history. As well as the predictable ghostly tales, we learn how, in the 1960’s, the pub became a battleground for feminists because of its refusal to admit women into the pub as customers. We learn what and who was not allowed at that time – this included ( and I quote ) “betting”, “swearing”, “women” and “queers”. 5 real ales were on, all from Caledonian ( Flying Scotsman, Deuchars IPA) and Theakston ( Lighfoot, Old Peculier plus one other ). The Deuchars IPA was in good nick. I resisted the temptation to go for the Old Peculier, even though it was priced at only £ 3.10p. The pub is listed in CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide for 2012. This is another one you really should try to do if the opportunity arises, despite a disappointing beer range. Note the 11 am opening, when many of the others don’t seem to open before midday at the earliest