The Kings Arms, Salford

Just down the road from Salford Central station, the Kings Arms is an impressive looking Victorian Grade II listed pub with a grand depiction of the royal coat of arms on a pediment at the front of the building. You enter into a corridor with a fine decorative tile floor and rooms off to either side. The front left hand room is a fairly simple, compact lounge with fixed benches along the front and rear walls serving a few standard tables. The main bar is in the room to the right - a pretty sizable space with an angular bar to the front left. The room has a mix of exposed floorboards and quarry stone flooring whilst the bar has a nice dark wood counter and bar back under a small canopy, all decorated rather irreverently with various certificates, a toy bird, an inflatable giraffe and a Sponge Bob ornament. The right side of the room has fabulous looking curved corners with nice etched glass windows bearing the pub's name and a series of high shelves holding old cameras and a range of theatre themed items. At the far end of the bar there is a colourful stained glass window with an image of a King's Head and the high ceiling sports elaborate decorations in the form of some impressive roses. Elsewhere you can spot a TV screen (turned off on this occasion), a nice painting of the pub and, of all things, a framed collection of crisp packets. A second corridor at the rear of the pub leads out to a pleasant, partly covered patio garden. A good indie soundtrack played throughout my stay and a trip to the toilets was an odd experience as the walls in the gents have been papered with pages from a local newspaper dated February 2015, for no apparent reason. A good mix of customers were in on this visit, creating a lively environment and there was a great communal effort from half the crowd in trying to retrieve a balloon that had floated up to the very high ceiling after a child inadvertently let go of it. The bar supports six hand pumps across two banks, but half were off on my Saturday afternoon visit, leaving a choice of Beartown Great Bear, Pennine Kinder Scout and Great Corby Red. Of those that had gone off, I noted another Pennine brew and Robinsons Old Tom. My pint of Kinder Scout was in good nick and the friendly bar staff were very apologetic and quick to rectify the problem when I realised they'd given me change for a fiver rather than the tenner I'd paid with. I didn't really know what to expect from this place, but thought it was a bit of an all rounder, with good beer, a lively atmosphere and a good customer mix, all in an attractive old building. This is a good place to stop off for a beer before jumping on a train and is a solid addition to any crawl around central Salford.

A really good pub. 6 cask ales on. A wall with a lot of "Do not disturb" pictures is adjacent to the bar. Bizarrely it had a signed Sheffield Utd shirt signed by Tony Currie. If Paul Heaton of The Housemartins still owns it I can see why. I liked this pub.

Official site of The Kings Arms - www.kingsarmssalford.com

Official site of The Kings Arms - www.kingsarmssalford.com

The Kings Arms is a nice old pub that is just down the road from Salford central station. There were a few different rooms inside and this was the sort of pub i like to go in. When i visited this pub it was a Boddingtons house that was operating as a free house,there were three real ales on the bar i had a drink of Joseph Holts bitter and this was a very nice drink the other beers were Taylor Landlord and Caines bitter. I thought this was quite a nice pub. Pub visited 20/11/1993