It’s one of the few remaining original Victorian buffet bars and still boasts a marble bar top. Fun fact: the local Environmental Health department actually insisted the bar should be ripped out and replaced with Formica for hygiene reasons back in the ‘70s but were duly overwhelmed by the indignant response from the owners and locals and the (perfectly hygienic) marble bar was given a reprieve and lives on to this day!

In fact, there wouldn’t be a West Riding without a Stalybridge Buffet Bar. Mike Field was inspired to create a railway pub at Dewsbury because he had spent so much time at the Buffet Bar as a student, and the whole project was something of a homage to it. We originally wanted to bring the Buffet Bar into the Beerhouses family in 1996 but lost out to John Hesketh. John and Mike stayed in touch over the years and when John, sadly, became seriously ill, he expressed his wishes that Mike should take it on after his death, which he did in 2012. There is definite poetry in this story for us that we were able to bring the two pubs together and ‘book end’ the Ale Trail line in this way.

Of course, being a Beerhouses pub, it has substance as well as style, with a great choice of cask ale on the bar. It has featured continuously in the CAMRA Good Beer Guide since 1999 and won many awards over the years. Just minutes out of Manchester on the train, we passionately believe that we can match any beer you’ll find in the city for quality – at town prices of course!