retiredmartin

June 2025. Scunthorpe.

The name doesn’t help, does it ?

I didn’t “complete” Scunny on Monday, so I shall be organising a return visit on a day when the Visual Arts Centre is open.

Then I’ll scour the town centre for culture, then head for the suburb of Ashby with its GBG perennial and ultra-rare Mansfield cask.

Can that be true ?

Actually, I might stay over. I do love an exotically named Chinese takeaway.

For now, I walked the mile west along Donny Road, admiring the street art,

and some decent looking road houses (?).

Rather like New Stevenage, there’s not a lot of pub heritage in central Scunthorpe, just a raft of chain dining pubs in the suburbs. Look on Untappd for craft inspiration and the first place that comes up is the Spoons.

At least its escaped gentrification the micropubs and brewery taps that have dogged Rotherham, whose team I saw thrashed 4-1 here after a pint at the Berkeley Hotel.

So we need to treasure the Berkeley, a 3 star heritage Sam Smiths hotel (without accommodation at the moment, so I shan’t be sneaking my crispy beef back to my TV-less room).

Yes, I turned my phone off at the door. Yes, the OBB was good enough (NBSS 3), though the only one pulled. Yes, I started conversation with an Old Boy on the bench seats about Sheffield. No, the pub wasn’t busy (though there was a meeting of a beloved political group that evening that would swell numbers).

But it is agonising being in a Sam Smiths pub without a phone to record the majesty of the public bar, so here’s one Sam Smiths themselves took earlier.

You know what, I reckon Sir Humphrey could learn a bit from Sir Tim. And vice versa.