{"id":302209,"date":"2025-07-29T21:24:50","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T21:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/302209\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T21:24:50","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T21:24:50","slug":"i-visited-24-pubs-in-oldham-in-a-day-there-were-three-absolute-gems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/302209\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I visited 24 pubs in Oldham in a day – there were three absolute gems’"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘Flying the flag for the area’\"AA popular YouTuber visited 24 Oldham and Royton pubs in less than 24 hours(Image: The Great British Pub Crawl)<\/p>\n

A former landlord turned YouTuber has shared his verdict on Oldham<\/a>‘s boozers after spending a day visiting 24 pubs.<\/p>\n

Dale Harvey – known for his video channel The Great British Pub Crawl – has been on a mission to have a drink in every pub in the country since 2022. Based in Nottingham, Dale says he has visited more than 5,000 pubs<\/a> so far.<\/p>\n

Last week, he spent a day in Oldham and he was able to tick off 24 venues. He said impressed with the variety on offer, heaping praise on three pubs in particular.<\/p>\n

Marking his first time in the Greater Manchester borough, Dale told his 20,000-plus subscribers he \u2018found some really, really good boozers\u2019 and that it was \u2018worth the trip\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think when it comes to pubs, I\u2019ve pretty much completed Oldham now,\u201d Dale told the Manchester Evening News<\/a> of the visit. \u201cI\u2019ve visited Manchester a few times, and had visited the day before, and just thought \u2018well, every town needs a visit at some point so why not now?\u2019<\/p>\n

\"DaleDale visited Oldham for the first time as part of the pub crawl(Image: The Great British Pub Crawl)<\/p>\n

Before his trip, as is now customary with all of his visits, Dale asked followers for recommendations of pubs to visit before coming up with an itinerary and a route.<\/p>\n

For his visit to Oldham, he started with The Tommyfield Inn, by Tommyfield Market. Praising its \u2018rustic charm\u2019, Dale said he was impressed with its drinks offer and said it was a \u2018very pleasant start to [his] day\u2019.<\/p>\n

He then made his way to the Town Hall Tavern, the Old Bank, The Railway Hotel, the Egyptian Room, The Trapdoor and the Bees Knees, where he sampled a half pint in each.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea is to do every pub so I will never walk past anything,\u201d Dale said. \u201cI will go in, no matter what. I think every pub is worth a visit and they all need to be in terms of my mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TownTown Hall Tavern was amongst those visited in the day-long crawl(Image: Google Maps)<\/p>\n

Dale said he had three firm favourites in Oldham. First off, he named the Fox & Pine, on Greaves Street, which has won a number of awards over the years. They were also a big help in bringing Dale to the area, having sponsored his visit.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year<\/a>, the community-led pub received three top prizes from CAMRA, including being named the Rochdale<\/a>, Oldham and Bury<\/a> CAMRA Pub of the Year for 2025. Based in a converted terrace house, the pub has become known for its good drinks selection as much as it has for its quirky aesthetic and unique memorabilia covering the walls.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s full of character,\u201d Dale added. \u201cIt\u2019s just an absolutely amazing pub. They have 10 cask ale lines on, which is something you don\u2019t often really find anymore these days. They\u2019re just really flying the flag for the area and keeping cask ales alive, which is a big heritage thing in British culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re lovely people, and they\u2019re doing such a wonderful job. And it\u2019s great to see just how busy they are – you often hear the other side of the coin from pubs when it comes to not getting enough people in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DaleDale with the team at Fox & Pine(Image: The Great British Pub Crawl)<\/p>\n

Dale also gave a recommendation to the Ashton<\/a> Arms, on Clegg Street, which has been described by CAMRA as a ‘traditional, well-run town centre’ venue, which has an ‘excellent’ beer range. “It’s another wonderful cask ale pub,” Dale said. “It’s just an absolute gem of a place.”<\/p>\n

And his third suggestion came in the form of the Molino Lounge on Yorkshire Street by the Town Hall. Housed in a former police station, the venue retains a lot of its original charm.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never really praise chain pubs, but they\u2019ve done a really good job of building something with a load of the old police station features,\u201d Dale said. \u201cThe old entrance and the concrete that still says police on it remain there, and it\u2019s really quite unique.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite a good idea to have kept something and not just knocked it down. It was nice to see what they\u2019d done with it, it set it apart from the other Lounges I\u2019ve been too which tend to look very similar to one another. It was a really nice find.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked what he discovered about the area during his first-time visit, Dale said he was positively surprised at Royton. \u201cRoyton seemed to be thriving,\u201d he added. \u201cThere\u2019s 18 or so pubs there and I only got through 12 of them, but they seem to be really attracting a nice mix of crowds.<\/p>\n

\"DaleDale said he was left impressed with the variety of pubs and the lovely community in Oldham(Image: The Great British Pub Crawl)<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were trendy cocktail bars and they are just trying to move with the times. I feel like Oldham is perhaps slightly slipping and losing stuff. Oldham apparently used to have over 300 pubs in the town centre, and now I think there\u2019s just 12 – and that\u2019s really sad.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel for Oldham because there\u2019s some really lovely people and places there. It\u2019s a really nice, little town but they\u2019ve just lost so many of their pubs. They really can\u2019t afford to lose any more.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn a whole, the hospitality industry is just in such a critical time right now. Pubs pay 20 per cent of VAT and they are struggling. I\u2019ve been very vocal that the government needs to do more, but this is something that has been happening for over 30 years now. We\u2019re at a really critical stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having been in the industry in various capacities over the years, Dale says he has seen how massively pubs have had to change and adapt in recent years to survive. But he says there\u2019s one thing that hasn\u2019t changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cPub culture is such a big part of being British,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s no other nation in the world like it when it comes to pubs – it\u2019s something our heritage is built on and it\u2019s now engrained in us.<\/p>\n

\"DaleDale was left impressed with the charm of the Molino Lounge, which is based within a former police station on Yorkshire Street(Image: The Great British Pub Crawl)<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember I once spoke to an 80-year-old called Dennis in the West Midlands, and he told me about how the pub was his life. He said visiting his local, which was about 100 yards from his house, was the only social interaction he ever had all week. And it couldn\u2019t afford to open on Monday or Tuesdays, so there were times where he could go three days without speaking to anyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s not a unique story about this one chap in the Black Country. There are little communities that are losing their pubs left, right and centre. It\u2019s a real thing, there is still such a big social aspect behind pubs and I think that\u2019s what the government could do with being reminded of sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whilst Dale still has another trip to Royton to plan for the future to tick off the remaining venues he was unable to visit this time round, he\u2019s got plans within the next month to return to Manchester and to also give Rochdale a visit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m so grateful that I\u2019m able to turn my passion into something I can do on a full-time basis,\u201d Dale says of his video channel. \u201cIt\u2019s great to visit these communities across the country and see what people are doing. And I hope it helps spread the word that there are some amazing places to be found just around the corner that are worth supporting.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can follow The Great British Pub Crawl on Facebook<\/a> and YouTube<\/a>. The ‘mega pub crawl’ around Oldham and Royton can be watched here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘Flying the flag for the area’A popular YouTuber visited 24 Oldham and Royton pubs in less than 24…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[51,1286,8937,17296,16,15,1737],"class_list":{"0":"post-302209","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-oldham","10":"tag-pubs-and-bars","11":"tag-royton","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-youtube"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114938637694465202","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}