Unexpectedly Closed In St Helens

A train and a bus took me to the northern side of St Helens where I was to start in the Windle:

Bugger!!  It's not open.  Google says it is, as does their own website.

I headed on for a long walk to target number two, the Abbey:

Er, inside this doesn't look anything like what I remember.  Is my memory faulty or has it been totally remodelled?  Anyway, what we find now is a mostly knocked through interior but it still has some separation between the areas.  The decor, pastel walls or wallpaper in some rooms, is very busy with mirrors, pictures, photographs and the like.  I want to say there are too many of these giving the walls a cluttered feeling, but in fairness it actually works very well; I like it.

Only one cask on, but one is enough and my Holt Bitter was excellent.

Not very busy at all, just two outside and I could see only two inside, hardly enough to occupy the four staff.

I scanned the menu:  I've noticed before that somehow Holt's pubs manage to offer standard chain dining pub fare and yet give some better/uncommon choices.  Wexford chicken looks very tempting, and the fish cakes with poached eggs also seems to be an unusual option. I resisted the temptation to try the food.

Next, visible out of the window is the Gerard Arms:

Another very quiet food-led pub, this time belonging to Greene King.

The only cask was Old Speckled Hen, which was very good.  There were also two ciders on handpump.  Unusual to have more ciders than ales, perhaps, but I wonder if it is intentional because of the expected heatwave?

There were more people in the pleasant looking beer garden than in the partly knocked through interior.  The decor here is more quirky than the Abbey, and also well done.  I wonder if the Ionic column is actually holding up the ceiling or is it just for decoration.  Wait, it's actually Corinthian, I think, and I can also see a couple of Doric ones.  (Confession:  I had to consult Google to find out which is which. And if we're nitpicking, none of them are fluted, so not really Greek at all.)

Thanks to the loss of the Windle my plan is in a mess as the next target doesn't open until three according to Google, and it's only quarter to two.  So, a hasty replan and a mile walk to the Black Bull:

This place has apparently got the magic touch!  The beer garden is full of families with kids running around, inside are groups of all ages, how do they do it?  It was so full I couldn't get a table to sit at, and had to put up with a high chair and a shelf.  And a Fosters.

Inside the splendid 1920s building (Or maybe even earlier; see the enormous chimneys?) the decor is a little plain but none the worse for that.  Not a lot of original features survive, but I think the basic room layout does.

Compared with the previous two ticks, the atmosphere here is absolute bedlam, I think I would prefer a little peace but it is so good to see a pub doing well, especially an out-of-the-way one like this.

I'm not sure what the food offer is here; the table next to me had brought bags of popcorn and their own sandwiches.

Next, it's not very far to the Bird I' Th Hand, is that how you write it?  I can see my capitalisation is different to Google's, we'll let the sign adjudicate:

The sign is all capitals, of course, so it doesn't help with upper/lower case but, much more annoying than that, the place is closed.  Bugger, again.  The appearance suggests to me that it is out of action, not just late opening the doors, but I could be wrong.

On to the Eccleston Arms:

Open, thank goodness, and my concern that this one might have crossed the pub/restaurant boundary since I was last here was unwarranted.

The barmaid served me instantly and I had ordered a Carling before I spotted the Doom Bar pump, so I may have missed out on cask here.  However, my recollection of my 2020 visit is that the cask was horrible, so perhaps this was the best outcome.

Another very busy one, with a party of some sort in one room and a buffet in another (Ooh, tempting), and no empty tables in the other rooms, so I headed out to the pleasant beer yard for a table in the shade of the wall, to drink my lager.

Another one doing a roaring trade, drinks and food were coming out into the sunshine all the time.

What next?  There's a bus stop across the road from where I can get a bus home, so I think that's it for today.  A disappointing/irritating survey, I hope the Windle and the Bird are just late opening today, but I fear not.

Pub of the day: Black Bull
Beer of the day: Old Speckled Hen
Miles walked: 3.0
Maybe coming soon: Undecided