retiredmartin

December 2025. Todmorden.

I’d really needed to get away, anywhere, after the boredom of the Christmas visits, and Todmorden (via Mirfield) provided the perfect day trip.

Two hours, two changes of train, perfect winter Calderdale scenery,

and two (2) new GBG ticks in a town I hadn’t visited since 2018, when I described it as the “the sane older brother of Hebden Bridge“.

Nice Mackintosh-esque flourish on the sign there.

A bit quiet at half one on Saturday; I guess the 27th is an odd one with Boxing Day gone, no local football and no real shopping needs with all that turkey left over.

Loads going on in Tod pubwise, mostly micro, and I’d spent ages on the 26th pinning down opening times (an Olympic sport) for my two newbies.

Evidence pointed to Nan Moor’s opening at 1pm, but Nan clearly had other ideas. I looked with increasing horror at a calendar that seemed to think today didn’t exist.

Anyway, as they say in Lancashire Yorkshire,

But also by an open pub, in this case The Fox, looking resplendent against the backdrop of the Town Hall.

Quite a serious beer place, the Fox,

and a rare outlet for Bara Brith from Jones the Baker.

I go with Pomona’s Double Futterwacken, as it’ Christmas, a rich, gorgeous pint of murk.

and wish for a little more conversation. That turns up in the form of an Old Boy, closely followed by his wife, who tells us the BBC just said it’ll snow for a week.

“But I’d rather believe that Al Jazeera than BBC these days” he adds.

“I reckon you can only trust The Pub Paper nowadays” I start,

and within 2 minutes we’d put the world to rights.

It’s what Pub Men (and women, sexist) do.