The White Hart, Todmorden

The White Hart has now been purchased by the Mountain Pub Company. Called in yesterday on the opening day where it was packed out, although the free drinks might have been a factor.

A very fine building elevated above the High Street ,it's on two floors with only the ground floor visited by me and the crew.The interior winds around the building ending in some 6 seater seating booths near the loos.It has the obvious corporate feel and the limited real ale range was saved by the single guest Settle Elderflower,sessionable and NBSS 3.5. If and until the ale range expands there is limited appeal to the real ale drinker ,sadly as it's a decent enough place.

This is a fairly attractive Wetherspoons, a complete contrast to its older stock of converted shops. It has the pub name in mosaic tiles on the floor in the entrance porch, which presumably predates its time as a Wetherspoons. Inside will be more familiar to the regular Spoons customer with the bar right in front of you as you enter and a couple of sections off to the left which presumably were separate rooms at one point. Despite being opened out, they still retain the feel of being distinctly separate areas. Going against everything we know about Spoons pubs, the bogs are on the ground floor (amazing!) and there is apparently a separate bar upstairs, though not investigated by myself (no need to, with the toilets being downstairs). The pub was pretty full yet strangely quiet in the afternoon towards the end of the lunch trade, which felt a bit weird. It took a couple of minutes to get served as both members of staff were helping a customer who was ordering food, but that gave me time to peruse the ale choice. There are ten hand pulls split across two banks of five, the left hand one had most of the guests and the one to the right had the usual Spoons selection (Ruddles et al) plus a guest or two (I recall seeing Pendle Witches Brew by Moorhouse's over that side). I had the Hop Black by Wibblers, a Cascadian Dark Ale and only £1.08 for a half. The carpet looked a bit worn and tired in places but otherwise the décor was reasonable and in good order. A couple of games machines were over to the left of the bar between the two separate sections. Mainly standard tables and chairs but I did notice some booth seating in the room to the rear. Not bad at all.