retiredmartin

February 2025. Worksop.

From the funeral in Waterbeach down to Kent and then over two borders to take Father-in-Law to a hospital appointment in East Grinstead (not even a pub stop), and then straight back up the A1 to Sheffield for more death-based paperwork. I needed a break.

On Thursday, the sun shone and I seized the day.

OK, perhaps Worksop and Mansfield wasn’t the dream holiday Mrs RM had in mind, and she resisted th lure of North Notts industrial towns. Her loss, obvs.

Six (6) pubs upcoming, almost BRAPA-esque pubbing, but we start with 22 minutes between trains in Worksop.

It’s only half an hour from Sheffield by train, and I’ve been trying to “do” Worksop’s main tourist attraction for a few years, but Mr Straw’s preserved inter-war house is always closed or the tour booked when I go on the National Trust site. One day…

It’s not a great pub town, and the handsome buildings on Carlton Road have rather lost out to the curse of “conversion to alternative use”,

or complete dereliction.

The brown-tiled Vine looks the pick of the pub pack,

but is inexplicably absent from Untappd. Another time.

Amongst the tattoo parlours and pizza takeaways sit this little gem;

Waddington looking like an Art Deco Greenwoods and flogging funeral suits at treble what I just paid for mine.

The Chesterfield Canal looks like a Work-in-Progress,

which leaves the Crossing as Worksop’s most attractive building.

In fairness, Worksop, like Bury or Chesterfield, is defined by its street market, the best place to buy pet food and Pet Shop Boys CDs in North Notts.

I briefly consider a 3 minute pint of Abbot in the Liquorice Garden, but save my 50p vouchers for Spoons yet to come and dash back to the Station (not the pub).