retiredmartin

June 2025. Scunthorpe.

Our third and final Scunny pub takes us north from the Berkeley, up to the exciting Charnwood estate.

Another potential bed for the night (and the cheapest petrol in many years) at Kirk’s Korner.

Sadly, Fiona gives a less than glowing endorsement of Kirk’s Motel;

When Fiona says she can hear EVERY activity in the next room, she is of course referring to pub tickers furiously colouring in their GBGs.

I’d asked the Old Boy at the Berkeley how he’s coped during the five years Sam Smiths had the pub closed.

“The Warren. It were OK”.

As Clout hinted in 1978,

a Greene King Flaming Grill is not an adequate substitute for a Sam Smiths heritage pub, even one with a mobile phone ban.

I felt I had to see what Old Boy had put up with for half a decade, even though the Warren Lodge was a major diversion from the route I hadn’t planned.

Oh look, Cask Marque. At least the beer won’t be warm.

3.45 pm definitely isn’t the Golden Hour, a bloke with an”Iron Town 69” (NOT an Ariana Grande track) T-Shirt the liveliest custom,

but at least that means I’m not competing with toddlers for control of the grabber, or whatever it’s called.

Suddenly I really want a pint of Perry, the worst possible idea, but when the barmaid tells me she’d struggle to squeeze a half out of the Bee Sting I’m not that distraught.

What Pub promises Doom Bar, but there’s just a forlorn GK IPA pump for the Cask Marque inspectors to inspect. It’s……………OK, where OK is 2.5+. I wish they hadn’t bothered. Only £2.49 a pint, mind.

But the rump steak on a skillet for under a tenner is also a bargain,

and if you come back in 3 weeks you can see Madonna play deep cuts of her underrated “American Life“.

Possibly.

On the walk back to the station I thought Scunthorpe looked neat and tidy, and that’s worth saying.

A lady was walking the verge, picking up rubbish with a metal scoop.. I thanked her for her voluntary service.

“I haven’t found any gold yet” she quips.