Golden Ball, York

An excellent community pub, just on the right side of tatty. It has several rooms, including two large ones and a side room with a bar billiards table (no right-handed shots though!). There is a nice courtyard garden at the rear. It had a good range of Yorkshire ales on, including a house beer from Ainsty. I had the Yorkshire Heart Blackheart which was excellent. It is in one of the more obscure residential parts of the city centre, although it falls nicely between the Ackhorne and the Slip.

looked like a good multi roomed pub but I can’t review it in detail as there was no room inside. I was sent to the beer garden to enjoy my real ale from Ainsty Ales, table service only post Covid. Seemed lively and popular and the ale was fine.

The Golden Ball is a Victorian era backstreet pub that underwent an inter-war remodelling thanks to the John Smith's brewery, leaving it with arguably the most interesting internal layout of any pub in the city. A terrazzo floored corridor leads you past a series of doorways before finally depositing you in the rear right main bar - a bare boarded room with a small but highly attractive servery on the front wall with a cream tiled counter upon which a selection of bakery products had been provocatively positioned at one end. Basic seating is supplied throughout this room, including numerous benches around the perimeter and there is some unusual map image wallpaper on the back wall, a brick fireplace to one side and a dartboard. To one side of the bar there is a highly unusual snug type space, with terrazzo flooring and space for just two tables and some bench and low stool seating. A small hatch here allows customers access to the bar and the space is opened out to the corridor, making it a feature that is quite possibly unique to this pub. To the rear there is a comfy lounge, or smoke room if you prefer, with curved banquettes and low stools arranged around a tiled fireplace. Bell pushes still survive above the banquettes and a large bay window looks out to the smartly presented rear garden. Local art lines the walls and many items appeared to be available to purchase. There is one final room to the left of the entrance - a newer addition converted from private quarters in the 1990's, where you will find a bar billiards table, smart tile fireplace and additional seating in a smart carpeted space. The ales available on this visit comprised Black Sheep Golden Sheep, Taylors Golden Best, Moorhouse Black Cat, Treboom Yorkshire Sparkle, Adnams Southwold Bitter and Little Brew Porter. This struck me as a pretty decent selection and my Yorkshire Sparkle was better than I'd initially anticipated. This is a really interesting pub that was good to explore and learn about. It seems very popular, with many of us confined to the corridor and garden due to the lack of available seating, and rightly so. Another excellent central York pub and one more for the revisit list.

I visited the Golden Ball on a recent Friday evening when the pub was fairly busy even before the large group I was with arrived. This is a multi-roomed pub with a bar to the right that supports seven hand pumps and a limited standard selection. There was no background music during my visit and I didn’t see any televisions, but there is a bar billiards table in a seating area to the left of the entrance. Blues is advertised for the first Thursday of each month. This is a good pub and is worth a visit.