Halifax Crawl - 21 June 2024

[Gann]

Having a look at a possible running order and these are my first thoughts.
The Wainhouse Tavern and The Big 6 are indeed a fair way out of town and need a 15 minute bus ride to get there and then back again as there is nothing inbetween to entertain. The Cross Keys is a shorter bus ride but south of Halifax and again nothing really of interest on the walk or ride.
Outside of these we have 12 other venues mentioned within the city centre (and that's not counting the two spoons ) , easily walkable between them so I personally would be inclined to stick with these and have a relaxing day in the town centre.
But the Big 6 and the Cross Keys do look to be worth the effort, so open to alternative suggestions.

[Dave M]

I've put all of the pubs mentioned into the pub crawl tool and made this one for people to clone and fine tune.

https://www.pubsgalore.co.uk/pub-cra...8-a0d5f86d2656

I'm hoping to make it to this one

[Bucking Fastard]

Having a look at a possible running order and these are my first thoughts.
The Wainhouse Tavern and The Big 6 are indeed a fair way out of town and need a 15 minute bus ride to get there and then back again as there is nothing inbetween to entertain. The Cross Keys is a shorter bus ride but south of Halifax and again nothing really of interest on the walk or ride.
Outside of these we have 12 other venues mentioned within the city centre (and that's not counting the two spoons ) , easily walkable between them so I personally would be inclined to stick with these and have a relaxing day in the town centre.
But the Big 6 and the Cross Keys do look to be worth the effort, so open to alternative suggestions.

I do like the sound of a simple crawl in the town centre.Dave's very helpful map does show how long walking to the outliers will take.Sadly I'm not aware of bus routes and the service regularity ,do we have any "locals" who could advise ?

[Mobyduck]

I'm in the town centre camp on this one and I know Big Steve won't be up for the long distance hike.

[Gann]

Well, that’s four of us for the town centre. Unless we get any local bus knowledge I will put a proposed town centre running list together by the end of this week

[Tris39]

I do like the sound of a simple crawl in the town centre.Dave's very helpful map does show how long walking to the outliers will take.Sadly I'm not aware of bus routes and the service regularity ,do we have any "locals" who could advise ?

Simple sounds good.

The Wainhouse's recent reviews don't seem to command the glowing encomiums bestowed on Big 6, which also has the heritage factor; it's less far out too.

[Quinno]

I do like the sound of a simple crawl in the town centre.Dave's very helpful map does show how long walking to the outliers will take.Sadly I'm not aware of bus routes and the service regularity ,do we have any "locals" who could advise ?

There are loads of buses which take 25 mins to Big 6. Taxis are quicker - about 10-15 mins.

If you haven't done Big 6 then I'd suggest you haven't really done Halifax.

The other outliers are less essential, based on experience, especially as you haven't got the Stod on the map, which is far more central.

[sheffield hatter]

Sadly I'm not aware of bus routes and the service regularity ,do we have any "locals" who could advise ?

I'm not local, but I do use buses on crawls. There are a couple of ways of getting around a strange town by bus. One is just to use Google maps, but you can't do more than one trip at a time - unlike walking, where you can add extra legs onto the route - so it's a cumbersome tool. Also it tends to give you unfeasable routes involving two changes and expecting a bus to turn up, or else a 90 minute wait in the middle of nowhere.

The other is bustimes.org. For this you need a bus number, and these are on the bus stops on Google maps. So for example the Cross Keys at Siddal is on bus route 543 (scroll down the panel on the left of the map to see the bus number). Googling "bus 543 halifax" gets us to this. Buses leave Halifax bus station every 30 minutes at 15 and 45 past each hour, taking just eight minutes to get to the Cross Keys (which opens at 2pm on Fridays). There's also a map which shows where the bus is, which is helpful for the return trip at 08 or 38 past each hour, as we can see how far behind schedule it might be. A bus trip to the Cross Keys would mean catching a bus at, say, 14:15, arriving at the pub at 14:23, then catch the return bus at 15:08, arriving back at the bus station at 15:15. That's if all goes well.

Alternatively, there's a short walk from the Cross Keys to the Shears Inn, which is marked as a wild card on Dave's map. (I'm not sure it would be worth a special trip to this one, but it's an interesting pub in an unusual location.) A 10 or twelve minute walk from there is the Three Pigeons, which is not to be missed.

Another one reachable by bus is the Wainhouse Tavern. There are several bus stops nearby, but the most promising one is Darcy Hey Lane. Six buses call at this stop, one of which is this one (tick the "show all stops" box). The street view of this bus stop shows that there are steps leading down to the lane, and it's only a couple of minutes from there to the pub, which also opens at 2pm on a Friday. I've not checked out the other buses, but having more than one option can help when at the bus station.

Perhaps the most interesting of the outlying pubs is also the hardest to get to, the Big Six Inn. There is a bus stop nearby, but only one bus calls there, and it's hourly. It is possible to link these three pubs (bus to Wainhouse, walk half a mile to Big Six, walk a mile and a quarter to Cross Keys) but that's possibly a little more than Pubs Galore crawlers are going to be up for, and it's taking valuable drinking time out of the day.

[sheffield hatter]

There are loads of buses which take 25 mins to Big 6. Taxis are quicker - about 10-15 mins.

There's the 577 which stops almost outside, but is hourly. Also the 532, which stops a five minute walk away, then the 546 and 574 which are in another direction - it's not getting there, it's getting back. Which stop do you go to?

So a taxi would be better, and this does seem like a pub that shouldn't be missed.

[ROBCamra]

As mentioned previously we can't make this one, but I do think Dukes is worth a look on the main crawl rather than just a wild card.