December 2023. Cheadle Hulme.
The 17:17 (delayed) was the slow boat back to Stockport, and presented the tantalising prospect of a second tick of the day, and let me tell young BRAPA that there will come a time when two (2) ticks is seen as riches indeed.
A bit of a dull slog from Cheadle Hulme station to the Cross Keys, taking you away from the refurbished family brewery dining pubs to an area of Stockport I would have called Adswood, on the sound legal basis that my pub is selling Tote tickets for Adswood United FC,
but it’s not a hill I wish to die on.
Despite (inevitably) turning the wrong way out of the station, I made time up as I sped past Pimlott butchers,
and along a dark, narrow lane north,
before I emerge amongst the bright lights of Ladybridge Road.
The Cross Keys has installed a shiny defibrillator for my benefit,
but it’s OK, I’ve got my order for a silky pint of Original (NBSS 3+) and pork scratchings in at 17:59.
So I get the happy hour price (about £2.60 a pint), though frankly I only know it’s Happy Hour as the bloke waiting patiently beside me has just, just, missed cut-off.
“Oh, blow” he said.
He’s anguished, the sort of despondency normally reserved for a Man United fan. Talking of which,
Ten Hag stands defiant, and so he should.
It’s a cheery place, long bench seating and a soundtrack of “Heart of Glass” and some Christmas tunes.
“Blimey, is that Christmas cheer creeping into your posts, Retired Martin“.
A one-off aberration, I assure you.
retiredmartin 
Greater Manchester still has four family brewers, Holts, Robinsons, Hydes and Lees, and Cheadle Hulme has pubs from all four. This is probably the only small town in Greater Manchester to have all four. Not many, if any, towns in the UK will have pubs from four established family brewers. All four serve great traditional beers.
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I’d forgot the Pointing Dog, a real Lees outlier. The other family brewers pubs in Cheadle Hulme all made the Beer Guide over the years.
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Tsk. And here’s me living in a capital city with only one.
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Sale
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So a Proper Day Out in Cheadle Hulme next year then ?
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I’ve walked down that footpath from the station to the Cross Keys a few times. It’s a real short cut, but a bit dark in winter as you discovered.
I always think of the pub as being in Adswood (Adswood Hall once stood near the opposite corner of Ladybridge Road), and I know Stockport and South Manchester CAMRA agrees with me. I rest my case, m’lud!
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