The Bobbin, Lancaster

This is a fairly large old pub that has been knocked into a single room although I did see a games room poster. There are a couple of raised areas one of which looked like it would be cleared to make a stage. There was a pool table a darts board, TV screens and a jukebox that I didn't look at. It was fairly quiet on my mid evening Friday visit. The bar has eight hand pumps of which one was unused and two had ciders one of which was an interesting looking Mango one. The five beers were Thornbridge Kipling, Coniston XB, Dark Star Carafa Jade, York Guzzler and Anarchy Smoke Bomb. I went for the Kipling which was £3.30 before the 30p CAMRA discount which was clearly advertised. It was in good condition. I quite liked this place but there was no live music or sport showing on my visit.

One of the few Lancaster pubs that I didn't frequent when I lived here in the 70s and 80s - then known as the Priory, it had a rather forbidding look about it. On a recent visit to the old town I thought I'd give it a try and was pleasantly surprised. The former multi-room layout can be imagined, and the open plan is broken up somewhat as described below. A big surprise to see as many as eight hand pumps on the bar, with two real ciders and four beers available. The breweries represented at the time of my visit were Dark Star (Sussex), 4Ts (Cheshire), Coniston (Cumbria) and Wickwar (Gloucestershire) - a huge geographical spread. I had Dark Star's Partridge, which was fairly understated for this brewery, but a pleasant drink. There's a 30p per pint discount for Camra members, which is very welcome and makes this one of the less expensive pubs in Lancaster city centre. Date of visit: 13th December 2014

A large corner pub, run by Mitchells and seemingly aimed at younger drinkers (plenty of them in!) with pool, darts, quizzer, modern jukey and a muted TV news on the go above the din. The interior looks recently refurbed, brown and bronze retro wallpaper, laminate flooring and a raised area to front left. Five pumps with three ales (Coniston Bluebird, York Guzzler, Everards Sleigh Bell) and Westons Old Rosie cider, though the ale blackboard had seemingly not been updated since Christmas Eve as it was showing two not on. My Sleigh Bell was in decent shape, however. Not a bad place and I wouldn’t be averse to a revisit.