Church Inn, Oldham

The Church Inn has a pool table directly to the right of the entrance and at the rear is a small bar area where standard keg and Amstel can be purchased. The only other customer was sat in here watching afternoon kick-off Europa League football during a recent Thursday visit. Annoyingly the background music was in a battle with the football commentary. In the left hand side of the pub is a separate larger lounge type bar area with beer and sweat stained banquette seating down the left wall faced by the bar counter, another television and a dartboard. In fact all of the furniture was distressed, and not in a trendy Chorlton way. A sign in the window said ‘'we are still open during refurbishment', which is certainly required, although I didn’t see any signs of work being done. This pub has seen better days and had the feel of a pub on its last legs. I hope that the promise of refurbishment is a real prospect.

Small, fairly basic pub on the edge of an estate, although it looks like it pre dates the houses. There's a smart lounge to the left and a more basic taproom to the right. There was no-one in the lounge during my visit, but I suspect it gets busier with couples later in the evening. The taproom has a pool table, dartboard, jukebox and a large TV. Several more mature locals in the tap on my Friday visit at about 5 p.m. There's no real ale, so I had a half of fizz and moved on. It's a standard locals local.