The Elsinore Hotel, Whitby

Located a short stroll uphill from the harbour, this is perhaps rather less touristy than many of the pubs on the waterfront. It’s a fairly traditional looking, corner pub with grey paintwork on the lower part of the walls and white on the top half. Internally it’s presumably been renovated at some point and is perhaps a little more contemporary than might be expected. There are rough wooden boards cladding much of the walls, although closer inspection found that at least some of these were actually some sort of printed plastic rather than genuine wood, and a plain whitewashed ceiling. Flooring was a mixture of more wooden boards and some fitted carpet, whilst a few old black and white photographs of the locale were scattered around the walls. In a nod to it’s nautical location, some old netting was covering one wall, as well as a couple of brass ship’s clocks. Beers on tap were Timothy Taylor Landlord, Wainwright Gold and Black Sheep Bitter, whilst the ciders were a rather disappointing Strongbow and Strongbow Dark Fruit.

Another pub requiring an uphill slog from the harbour, this is a friendly local’s boozer in what appears to be a former two-room pub with a central corridor, now all opened out into a single space. Entering through a centrally positioned front door, you follow the route of the former corridor, which is now devoid of partitioning, flanked by seating areas on either side and the bar to the rear right. The right-hand side of the room is bare boarded, with a decorative strip of floor tiles around the bar area. High tables and stools dominate the centre of the room, with more high stools along a ledge down the right-hand wall, a banquette under the front window and a few standard tables and chairs filling in any remaining spaces. The servery has a rather uninteresting modern counter and bar back, neither of which really enhance the overall look of the pub. Better to move over to the carpeted left-hand side of the room, which has another banquette under the front window but is otherwise filled with tables and chairs. A tidy stone fireplace acts as a nice focal point on the end wall and has a large plain mirror above it. The entire room has been decorated in wallpaper that looks like full height tongue and groove panelling painted in different colours – it’s a strange effect but it works pretty well. There is a seafaring theme throughout the pub which includes plenty of paintings and photos but also some lobster traps, fishing nets and oars. Some upbeat tunes were playing away in the background and there was a pretty good Sunday evening crowd in attendance. They had just the two cask ales on the bar – Taylors landlord and Tetley’s Cask, with Black Sheep Bitter having recently been taken off. My pint of Landlord was served to me, appropriately enough, by the jovial landlord who was convinced he’d served me the night before (he hadn’t). It was in pretty good nick, but maybe a bit steep at £4.20 a pint. A very friendly barmaid was working very hard, running around from table to table taking orders from the mostly older clientele, even though there was no obligation to do so. I quite enjoyed my visit to this smart but down to earth boozer. It acted as a nice contrast to the plethora of tourist-friendly pubs and felt much more like a place the locals would be happy spending time in rather than somewhere for day-trippers to grab some food. It doesn’t dazzle on the beer front, but it serves its purpose well and I’m always pleased to see pub’s like this doing a good trade.

One room pub with the bar to the rear right. Couple of weak real ales, rest keg.

Decent old pub decorated with lots of stuff from bank notes to nautical bits by way of pistols and boomerangs. Tetleys, Cameron’s and Theakstons, none in particularly good condition.

Old fashioned and comfortable pub with a couple of ales on. My Camerons Strong Arm was fine.

Traditional old single roomed dark pub. Very homely and friendly, lots of dark wood pannelling compliment the many ship pictures and lobster pots, with a very nautical theme. Just far enough away from the main bussle of Whitby. 3 real ales - Camerons Strongarm, John Smiths & Tetley