Old Bulls Head, Eccles, Salford

In the left of the pub is a public bar with seating and a dartboard, but this was empty during my visit on Wednesday evening. The much larger right hand bar had a handful of people in to watch the football that is aired on multiple televisions. At the rear of the bar is a pool table and a small stage area with speakers is found centrally in the rear wall. This is a Holts pub with a bank of three hand pumps in each bar, along with their usual keg. All handpumps were clipped with Holts Bitter. I found the service to be polite, but I’ll not be rushing back here.

I've passed by many Holt's pubs this year and have been put off by the banners outside advertising BT and Sky Sports. This one is no exception but on this occasion I had time to give it a go. Inside there's a public bar to the left as you enter and a Saloon to the right. Both seemed basic traditional old fashioned rooms but with the exception of the TV screens which are neither traditional or old fashioned. I went in the right bar as that had three hand pumps. The two screens at the end were showing very boring music videos (not Pink Floyd). Thankfully the stage was unused and there were no pool players. The three hand pumps all had Holt's Bitter (£2.28) which was in excellent nick and a fine old school Northern bitter. I was also pleased to see the legendary Holt's prices still in evidence especially as I thought the barman had said £3.28. I enjoyed my visit here but would avoid on a Saturday night or when a major sporting event was on.

Large multi roomed pub on Eccles main pedestrianised street. There's a fairly small tap room to the left which had a TV showing Racing UK with several punters watching. The large main room to the right has a pool table at the bottom end and was very busy at about 4 on a Friday afternoon. A karaoke rig was just being set up in the corner when I arrived, so I knew that this would be a fairly quick visit. It's a Holts pub so 3 of their beers available on handpump Bitter, IPA & Maplemoon. I had a pint of the bitter at the great price of £2.07 and settled back to people watch. It seems like a friendly local in the middle of town with most people knowing each other. Lots of banter going on in several different groups including a bunch of loud, shrieking women around one table. It's not a pub for the faint-hearted, but I quite liked it. It's one of the better pubs in Eccles. When I walked past later on my way back to the station it sounded like there was a cat strangling competition being held, so I guess the karaoke had started. :-))

The Old Bulls Head is situated at the bottom end of the pedestrianised precinct and this was one of the pubs we came to Eccles for. The pub looked very run down and basic from the outside and it was just the same inside,we had a drink in the bar which was very basic but we were happy enough having a drink in here. This pub is a Joseph Holt tied house and there were two real ales on the bar we had a drink of Holts bitter and this was a really nice drink the other beer was Holts mild. I quite like doing pubs like this. Please take the time to look at photos of this pub to see how pubs change over the years. Pub visited 21/2/1987