![The Corn Exchange in Bury St Edmunds](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/travel/2024/07/03/TELEMMGLPICT000384185981_17200095682000_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwSX5rhseiWKOo9p9OQ-ymek.jpeg?imwidth=680)
In praise of Wetherspoons – and five worth travelling for
Though far from perfect, the pub chain is among our most versatile venues, as useful for a morning coffee as an evening drink
![The Corn Exchange in Bury St Edmunds](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/travel/2024/07/03/TELEMMGLPICT000384185981_17200095682000_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwSX5rhseiWKOo9p9OQ-ymek.jpeg?imwidth=680)
I was scratching my head recently over where to meet someone for a morning work meeting in Greenwich. A coffee shop? Too small, too noisy. Outside? Risky, to say the least, given the British weather. A pub? Perhaps unwise at that hour. A greasy spoon? Tempting, but it’s hard to chat with a mouthful of fried food.
Then the obvious answer struck me. Wetherspoons. It’s the most versatile venue on the British high street, as useful for a morning coffee as an evening drink, home of “Curry Club”, funky carpets, good-value beer, app-based table-delivery antics, family-friendly food and a clientele that takes in punters from all walks of life. Invariably spacious, too.
In its ability to be different things to different people, Spoons has become the Woolworths of the 21st century, except with £1.59 pints of Doom Bar.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, then, that an enterprising holiday company, MyUKTour, has started offering two separate seven-day tours of some of the UK’s most notable Wetherspoons – one in the North of England, one in the South.
Have you ever dreamt of a trip taking in The Corn Exchange in Bury St Edmunds (“Britain’s poshest Spoons”), The Golden Lion in Rochester (“best carpet”) and Ramsgate’s Royal Victoria Pavilion (biggest Spoons of all)? Then you’re in luck.
![The outdoor seating area at the Royal Victoria Pavilion in Ramsgate](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/travel/2024/07/05/TELEMMGLPICT000384186003_17201653004310_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqrpfQw2hJyG_yckwxPAr0gmyy-GsNrhPQbLesooHneHs.jpeg?imwidth=350)
It sounds like fun – and at the very worst, it is a good way to get to know England (presumably the Scottish and Welsh tours are still at the planning stage). My local Spoons, the Brockley Barge in South London, draws a genuinely representative cross-section of the local community: young and old, black and white, ale drinkers, cocktail lovers, party animals and old lads with nowhere else to go. The neighbourhood has nothing else remotely as diverse in terms of clientele (even if, I must admit, I did have one of the worst pints of cask ale of my life in there last year).
Wetherspoons’ success owes everything to founder and chairman Tim Martin. 6ft 6in tall and never short of an opinion, he has become a lightning rod for criticism – plenty of people who’d never been in a Spoons vowed to boycott it on the basis of his widely-broadcast Brexit views – but he has an uncanny, unparalleled knack for running British pubs.
![Tim Martin, founder and chairman of JD Wetherspoon, at the Metropolitan Bar in Marylebone](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/travel/2024/07/05/TELEMMGLPICT000354495582_17201651062740_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=350)
The company has recently been closing some lower-turnover venues (including one of my favourites, The Capitol in Forest Hill), opting instead to invest in high-footfall venues such as The Lion and Unicorn, a huge new pub at Waterloo Station which is to open later this year. This approach appears to be paying off. At a time when many Britons are financially stretched, Wetherspoons is thriving: profits are up, to the extent that Martin claims to be planning somewhere in the region of 200 more pubs.
So while Spoons is not perfect – a good independent pub will always be better, if not cheaper – they’ve got plenty going for them, not least that they’ve kept so many attractive and historically important buildings in public use. Buildings worth travelling for? You be the judge.
Five Wetherspoons worth travelling for
1. Caley Picture House, Edinburgh
![Caley Picture House, Edinburgh](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/travel/2024/07/03/TELEMMGLPICT000384154458_17200092736710_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpeg?imwidth=350)
Several former cinemas have become Spoons over the years, including the Picture Playhouse in Bexhill and the Prince of Wales in Cardiff, and for good reason: they make for very atmospheric, attractive pubs. The Caley Picture House is an appropriately elegant venue for Britain’s most beautiful major city.
An art deco structure opened in 1923, it was a cinema and then a music venue and nightclub before becoming a pub in 2016. The award-winning restoration was intended to showcase various original features, including trumpet-shaped pendant lighting and diamond-shaped mirrors in the loos. The best seats are on the upper mezzanine level, with views overlooking the rest of the pub.
2. Hamilton Hall, Liverpool Street
![Hamilton Hall, Liverpool Street](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/travel/2024/07/03/TELEMMGLPICT000384187663_17200093491460_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpeg?imwidth=350)
Of all Wetherspoons’ station pubs, this is probably the most impressive, no surprise when you consider it was once the ballroom of the Great Eastern Hotel, which opened in 1884. Named for Lord Claud Hamilton, chairman of the railway that built the station, it’s still an elegant place for a drink, especially if you sit in the upper bar, where you can almost reach out and touch the elaborate Rococo plasterwork on the ceiling.
There are TV screens displaying train times, and opening time is at 7am, for breakfast and pints: no wonder this is one of the busiest and loudest of London’s Wetherspoons.
3. Royal Victoria Pavilion, Ramsgate
![Royal Victoria Pavilion, Ramsgate](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/travel/2024/07/03/TELEMMGLPICT000137997737_17200094328040_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwSX5rhseiWKOo9p9OQ-ymek.jpeg?imwidth=350)
Kent has a lot of high-quality Wetherspoons. There’s the aforementioned Rochester branch and its carpet; Tunbridge Wells, which is housed in the town’s former Opera House and which apparently attracted a very on-brand petition against it when it opened as a pub in 1996; and this one, the cream of the crop.
The Royal Victoria Pavilion, a French-classical revival structure opened in 1903, had fallen into disrepair before it was rescued by Wetherspoons and reopened in 2017. Ramsgate is an excellent pub town – the local brewery, Gadds’, is one of England’s best – but any visit here should include a drink overlooking the sea at The Pavilion, Britain’s biggest Wetherspoons.
4. Trent Bridge Inn, Nottingham
![Trent Bridge Inn, Nottingham](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/travel/2024/07/03/TELEMMGLPICT000384101363_17200091762710_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqpVlberWd9EgFPZtcLiMQf0Rf_Wk3V23H2268P_XkPxc.jpeg?imwidth=350)
Some Wetherspoons pubs, like the Trent Bridge Inn, were pubs long before Tim Martin first blew the froth off a pint of cask ale. This is a genuinely historic pub, albeit much of the history occurred before the current iteration, built in 1890, was around.
The Inn played a key role in Nottingham’s rich sporting history: the famous cricket ground was created on a meadow behind the pub by William Clarke, captain of the All-England team and husband of Mary, who ran the Inn. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is one of the most traditionally pubby Wetherspoons venues, with a variety of rooms and some attractive dark wood panelling.
5. Winter Gardens, Harrogate
![Winter Gardens, Harrogate](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/travel/2024/07/03/TELEMMGLPICT000384098596_17200095031340_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpeg?imwidth=350)
Sometimes you have to chuckle at the historical irony of Wetherspoons pubs – places like the Sedge Lynn, a former Temperance billiard hall in Manchester, or this venue, built as part of Harrogate’s former Royal Baths, where a variety of health conditions were “treated”.
The Winter Gardens was where visitors were able to stroll amidst trees and plants when the Yorkshire weather wasn’t playing ball. Pints have now replaced plants, making this one of Britain’s most elegant pubs. The highlight is the sweeping bifurcated stone staircase that leads down from the main entrance into the bar.