West Derby Again

On a chilly but sunny Thursday afternon I caught the bus to West Derby Village for my second visit in four months.  I started across the road from where I finished last time, in the Hunting Lodge, which used to be called the West Derby Hotel:

Behind the half-timbered frontage I found a pleasant comfortable lounge side of two rooms which look to have been well refurbished in the not too distant past.  I'm told this place is Grade II listed, presumably for the exterior as I couldn't see anything historic inside.

Just a few customers were keeping the place ticking over.  There were various racing channels on the tellys, but no-one seemed to be watching.

There was some kind of stage area in the corner, ready for the live entertainment they were advertising for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

On to the Royal Standard:

The knocked through interior has been very well done out in the twenty years since I was last here, with stone floor, old-looking wooden bar front, and fake beams.  Four or five handpumps were mostly "brewing" according to the labels, but of the two that weren't I chose an excellent pint from Weetwood.

The place was fairly quiet, as you might expect after two on a Thursday, but there were enough customers, mainly eating, to keep the friendly efficient staff occupied.  Asking for my order while still dealing with the previous customer is a basic barstaff skill that often seems to be lacking nowadays, but it isn't here.

The food looks good, it's another Greene King chain pub.

Next, just over the road to the Crown Inn:

Wrong door alert, as I found myself in the bar side with just one customer, while I could hear gentle chatter from the lounge side.  The decor features wood panelling, dating from the 1935 rebuild, but the bar side had a slightly run down chaotic air to it, with loads of drum kit and other band stuff scattered around the place.  Nonetheless, I sat on a comfortable bench seat on the back wall and swigged my Guinness as I wondered what the other side was like.  It turned out to be similarly decorated but a little tidier and busier.

On to the Bulldog, a late sixties construction, I think:

Inside, one enormous open room is very pleasantly done out.

There were two handpumps on the bar, but neither were available, disappointingly.

As I drank my Guinness I studied the humorous slogans on the walls:  In my opinion writing "spot the mistake?" at the bottom is no substitute for getting it right in the first place, especially when there are a number of grammatical errors in other slogans around the place.

I must say it was nice to hear track after track of Pink Floyd playing, I don't know if someone had programmed the jukebox or if it was just good taste on the part of the computer.  Eventually it reverted to bog standard stuff.

There were enough customers to keep the place ticking over, and a gentle chit-chat mixed with the music, while I worried about why parts of my domestic control system (See another of my web sites if you're interested.) had gone off line shortly after I left home, and then recovered.  (On my return I concluded there had been a brief interruption of the mains, long enough to reboot some of the systems.)

Coming next:  There's a new micro-pub in Prescot, or how about somewhere in Merseyside I've never been to, with three pubs.