The Wild Swan, York

Official site of The Wild Swan - www.wildswan.pub

Official site of The Wild Swan - www.wildswan.pub

Coverted from a "characterful" village pub into a pub cum restaurant. As you enter there is a formal Restaurant to the right and a comfortable public bar to the left, Scrabble tiles on the doors describe what's on offer in each. Both rooms share the central open fire although in the public it's an inglenook style one. Beside the fire are a couple of leather armchairs, a wheelback chair and a tables, the rest of the bar has mainly kitchen tables a little crammed in, the restaurant's a little packed as well making the journey to the toilets a bit of a struggle, especially if some dick has his chair stuck out. Disabled access is possible but the toilet is reached through the restaurant where the furniture may make navigation difficult. The toilets are rather tweely labelled as Girls and Boys and there's that nice liquid soap and hand lotion popular with country pubs, and the paper towels are in a basket. Rather than the traditional tea lights they have lanterns fitted with strings of leds, there are packs of card games on the tables as well. The public has some exposed ceiling beams, although not particularly ancient ones, light fittings made from antlers and a stuffed stags head on one wall, otherwise it's decorated with pewter tankards, a variety of prints, pictures and mirrors and there are china swans above the fire. On the bar-back a stuffed fox looking a bit like Basil Brush’s dad lurks. Three hand pumps in the public, none in the restaurant of course, serving a well kept Landlord plus two from Black Sheep. The front wall and sign bill the pub as a "Proper Yorkshire Pub" and admittedly a bit of village pubby-ness remains in the bar.

Quite a rarity these days a basic village pub that hasn't been gastrofied, don't run away with the idea that this is some “roses round the door” bucolic gem, it's not. It is a small untidy two room pub providing a basic service to the citizens of Minskip and any travellers straying off junction 48 of the A1M. The right hand room is very much a public bar with a couple of leather sofas squeezed in, along with a counter in one corner, the doors to the loos along one wall and a TV , and I mean a TV not a screen, somehow finding a place. Some soap opera or other was delighting or otherwise, a couple of regulars. The other side is slightly bigger and is designated “Dinning Room” on a hand written sign. Both counters have a single handpump but the Black Sheep clip was reversed so I had a Fosters that wasn't very good. There are warnings of dire consequences for unauthorised parking in the carpark.