A HOLT IN ROMILEY

October 2026. Romiley. Greater Manchester (it’s Cheshire ! shouts Old Mudgie)

The new Greater Manchester entries in the Beer Guide are an eclectic bunch;

well, OK, not really. Your usual group of small bars, brewery taps, a Spoons and just Flixton waving the flag for large dining pubs.

But those new “micro pubs but not in a Thanet way, oh no” are routinely high quality shop conversions, and so it proves again in Romiley, as the Voltigeur joins neigbouring SteelWorks in the Stockport village sections of the Guide.

Romiley is on the slow but beautiful line from Sheffield to Manchester, and this seems to be the first time I’ve wrote about it. I reckon the station itself might be the highlight,

but St Chads offers strong competition.

In a lovely rural setting near the Peak Forest, Voltigeur (it’s a horse) is on one of those parade of shops that characterise late Victorian Cheshire.

More folk drinking outside than in, and people complain about the weather in Manchester !

Bright and cheery, dads and daughters, granddads and greyhounds, with seating booths down the left mirroring horse stalls.

3 pint pots on the CAMRA website, a good sign, and loads of old brewery tat. like these Robbies classics;

For a change, a soundtrack set in the early 60s,

and a beer line-up anchored by a superbly chewy Holt Bitter (VG),

for which I get a little stamp on my collector’s card, though most of the cask is Brightside.

It would NOT be my last stamp of the day.

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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.

10 thoughts on “A HOLT IN ROMILEY”

  1. Oooh that looks a great pub, almost worth a detour between L***s and Super Manchester 😁

    I love a ‘free pint’ collectors card, but always forget them, and leave them at home

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    1. Paul, during my final year in the Greater Manchester area, I rented a flat, above a butcher’s shop in Romiley. I don’t think that it was the same one featured in Martin’s shot.

      A nice little town though, and not far from the foothills of the Pennines.

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      1. Paul, it must have been nice living not far from the foothills of the Pennines and with plenty of Robinsons beer around you.
        Mainly during the 1980s I had weekends away with friends staying in the Squirrel at Chinley, White Hart in Ashbourne, George at Tideswell, Royal at Hayfield twice and Lime Kiln and Red Lion in Wirksworth. Eighteen nights in pubs and 118 in Youth Hostels makes Derbyshire my second most visited county. That’s after Yorkshire, three counties really, which included sixteen nights in pubs. At about 35 Kent has had my most nights in pubs, that mainly being visiting my grandmother, then short spring breaks with my wife. Not that you really wanted all those numbers.

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      3. Okay Martin, nights in pubs ( totalling over a week ) from 1973 to 2026
        Kent c35
        Cornwall 21
        Derbyshire 18
        Cumberland 17
        Yorkshire 16
        Somerset 12
        Westmorland 9
        Buckinghamshire 8
        Sussex 8
        Cardiganshire 10
        Glamorgan 10
        Montgomeryshire 9
        Caernarfonshire 8

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      4. It is a nice town, Paul. I walked (ran) there from the Northumberland Arms, a perenennial award winner a mile or so east on the edge of Marple, a very smart commuter town.

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