TOP 100 PUBS – STATION BUFFET BAR, STALYBRIDGE

February 2025. Stalybridge.

“I don’t think I’d leave the railway station” commented Paul Mudge after my Stalybridge micro post, and while I think there’s space in the UK pub scene for all sorts of boozers, it’s true that many folk don’t wander beyond the Buffet Bar.

If they did, they’d immediately find the pubs with (once, anyway) the longest,

and shortest names.

Astonishingly, a first visit to the Buffet since pre-COVID, when I snatched a shared pint with the legendary Quosh. Sharing pints, even with yourself, became a capital offence just 3 months later.

Meeting Quosh was the reason we were here now, that and a chance for Mrs RM to take photos (better than mine) for her travel blog post “Who needs Venice when you’ve got Tameside ?“.

“It’ll be packed” I told her. “It’s on the Vomit Line between Manchester and Huddersfield“.

It wasn’t packed, and Mrs RM grabbed the prize table next to the fire. Something fruited, something dark, both NBSS 3.5.

Quosh turned up. That chap is always smiling. I thought he’d have a pint of the 8.2% one with “gateaux” in it but he’s obviously gone sensible.

We mainly talked about Dukenfield, whose glories you can see spread out from the front window.

Mrs RM followed the Boddies sign to the wonderful back rooms.

Blimey.

And as she returned a carriage of, I kid you not, two dozen young Ale Trailers disgorged itself into the bar.

At least they weren’t going to be asking for tasters.

A wonderful place, as is the Etihad, whose owners have attempted to appease us for our “disastrous” season by giving City fans free food.

That cottage pie is the best thing I’ve eaten inside a football ground since Kidderminster Harriers 20 years ago.

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

20 thoughts on “TOP 100 PUBS – STATION BUFFET BAR, STALYBRIDGE”

  1. Martin, Me bring unlikely to leave Stalybridge railway station doesn’t mean I think there isn’t space in the UK pub scene for all sorts of venues.
    Last March I left Hartlepool railway station and found the Anchor to be a lovely pub.

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    1. I’d be getting away from the Rat Race as quickly as possible too !

      I found the Anchor (the Cameron’s tap ?) a lovely pub but sadly they didn’t serve Strongarm in bankers, which rather detracted from the experience.

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      1. Yes, the Cameron’s Brewery tap where the Strongarm was drinking well.
        I have yet to experience bankers. Middlesborough, Northallerton, Hartlepool, Sunderland and Berwick was plenty for a day as I was approaching my seventieth year.

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  2. Paul, 49 days to go until the big seven zero, but taking each day as it comes. My new driving license arrived the other day, and it’s my first photo-card one as well. Hand signals were still part of the driving test, in 1973, but fortunately the an with the red flag had been laid off.

    The Stalybridge Buffet is on my bucket list, along with a long overdue return visit to Hebden Bridge.

    Quosh’s haircut looks very dapper, btw.

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    2. Yes Paul, I’ve got the application form for my first photo-card driving license so will have to get a new photograph as my bus pass one taken outside the Lost Dene won’t do. And I need a haircut before a photograph.

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  3. I’ve never made it past the station buffet bar at Stalybridge either, nor been there since before COVID. I must go back some time and explore the pubs beyond it.

    The mid nineteenth century description of the then textile town by Friedrich Engels (“shocking filth”, “repulsive effect”) is even more damning than that of Stockport further downstream (“renowned throughout the entire district as one of the duskiest, smokiest holes”). I wonder what he’d make of them in their less polluted, post-industrial state (I’ve been to the industrial museum next to his childhood home in Wuppertal, on the banks of the river above which the equally impressive Schwebebahn suspended railway now runs).

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      1. His favourite pastime, and the reason why he often travelled out of Manchester by train across the Stockport viaduct, was riding to hounds with the Cheshire Hunt. He seemed to have enjoyed living in the then tony Chorlton-on-Medlock and drinking beer at the Albert Club there with fellow German merchants, and also wrote about the well to do commuting into the city from “the breezy heights of Cheetham Hill, Broughton, and Pendleton, in free, wholesome country air, in fine, comfortable homes”. Again, I’m not sure what he’d make of them now.

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  4. Matthew, that Schwebebahn suspended railway in Wuppertal, is amazing, but also well used and popular with locals and visitors alike.

    There is also a very good brew-pub in Wuppertal, converted from a former public swimming baths.

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      1. Martin T,
        Those trolley buses remind me that Wolverhampton used to have the world’s largest network of them. No overhead railways though, just a High Level and a Low Level station.

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      3. Matthew,
        Very sorry to get your name wrong.
        I shouldn’t be commenting about Wolverhampton so soon before leaving home to go there.

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