Tudor House Hotel, Wigan

An unusual building, though more pub-like inside than out. Its main raison d'etre would appear to be live music, but they do have a few real ales on the bar and the Timothy Taylor Landlord that we had was in reasonable condition. (See photos for other beers on.) We had asked for halves but were served pints, so we had a bit more time here than we had allowed for. We were the only customers on a Saturday early afternoon, and one of the staff seemed to be engaged in preparations for a band later. The most interesting feature we noticed was a small bench with a curved back which had a shelf for standing beer glasses on - at least, that's what we were doing with it.

this pub reopened this year after a lengthy closure and is still a grungy but characterful rock music pub. The jukebox is of the modern variety as is most of the decor, split into the bar and the wooden floored area where the bands play. The real ales were from Moorhouses, Wychwood and Tim Taylors today so nothing too interesting , but it’s still a great Wigan pub that i’m very glad is open.

Located in a former nunnery, the Tudor House Hotel is a large two room pub, close to the bus station. Entering through a nice wooden porch, you find yourself in the main bar with the servery running down the middle part of the right hand wall. The floor is tiled with some nice mosaic patterns and the front part of the room, which was clearly a separate room in the past, has some chunky tub chairs and sofas as well as a side door leading to a small beer patio with a few benches. Beyond the bar there are similar comfy seating options, which is more than can be said for the seating in the room on the left hand side of the pub. This room looks like it is mainly used for live music performances, with a small stage to the front, but there is still a good amount of seating in here. Low wooden pews without any padding compete with high metal stools which have some sort of central ridge on the seat that looks like it could cost you a testicle if you’re not careful, in what must be the most uncomfortable room I’ve ever found in a pub. There are wooden floorboards and bare brick walls plus a DJ booth and table football table at the rear. There is low level lighting throughout, which combines with the dark wood and paintwork to create quite a gloomy atmosphere within, given the bright day outside. They seem to be pitching themselves as Wigan’s number one craft beer bar if the signs outside the pub are to be believed, and to be fair, they did have a good keg range including Flying Dog Doggie Style, Hoegaarden, Wytchwood Hobgoblin, Marston’s Smooth and a couple of Brewdog beers. Bottles were from the likes of Brooklyn and Goose Island but the range doesn’t match the sort of quantity you might find in Manchester’s top beer outlets. On cask there was Moorhouse Pendle Witches Brew, Acorn 9th Noel and Tatton Best. I gave the Acorn a try and thought it was in good nick, if a bit lacking in flavour for a 5%+ beer. This is an unusual place which was conspicuously quiet compared to a lot of the town centre pubs. I got the impression that it probably comes to life later in the day and would be popular with a younger crowd. I wouldn’t mind giving this place another try when it’s a bit busier and would recommend adding it to any town centre crawl. It’s also quite easy to get to Wigan Athletics’ JB stadium from here – just follow Frog Lane as far as Beresford St, then go under the train line and take the bridge over the canal – all in 15-20 minutes.