The Hartshill Mile – Part 4: The (Old House At) Home Stretch

You know the score by now; walk down the A52, stop off at a few boozers and donate money for the Macari homeless centre in every pub.

It’s not rocket science but the best pub crawls walks are simple and this one ticked all the boxes. After the raucous scenes in the Red Lion it was back to a more reserved, but nonetheless, warm welcome at the 447 – Old House At Home ST4 6AF.

There always comes that time on a pub walk where recollections are a little sketchy unless you are taking copious amounts of notes or pictures (I wasn’t).
However, I can deduce from these pictures that (a) it sold Bass

(b) the Bass was very good…although that’s from memory as no bad beer all day

(c) there was a bloke at the entrance having a fag with lots of nearby chimney pots

and (d) we tried to get them to put the cricket on Sky Sports as England dug in collpased against Ireland, depending what time of day it was.

All of which meant the good humour continued as Bill, our new found drinking partner CAMRA guide, who had just popped out two hours ago to deliver a copy of the local CAMRA mag, waxed lyrical about the 448 – Artisan Tap ST4 6AF.

(not Bill)

Matthew, who lived in nearby May Bank for years, noted in the comments section that craft bars and tap houses were unheard of in Stoke but even the Potteries moves with the times and this has a Bohemian feel and was definitely the most civilised boozer of the day.

Look, people are even queuing for a beer.

Not sure what beer was had in here but there were no complaints and this was a place to sit out the front (like The Greyhound) and watch the A52 go by as the sun continued to beat down.

A short stroll led us to the penultimate boozer as The Robin Hood is currently shut, but believed to be safe from permanent closure and likely to open again soon.

The Hartshill Mile guru mentioned earlier in the day that this route had 12 boozers years ago and even though some have bitten the dust they have been replaced by newer versions (Artisan/Cask Bar/Sanctuary), so it has been good to watch the scene evolve.

Anyway, 449 – The Noah’s ST4 7NX has been standing on the Hartshill Road for a while but has had a half a million pound refurb in the not too distant past and contained a helpful map for Martin’s benefit

Simon My fellow gold meal winner  remembered it as Noah’s Ark from his student days…

and whilst it had more of a food section than some it also kept a good drinkers area and lots of people outside once again in this big old boozer.

A good pub and they even stamped our Hartshill Mile card twice to make up for The Robin Hood being closed…

…which meant we had one final destination in order to earn our medals.