The New Beehive Inn

A brilliant National heritage pub with a great atmosphere, beautiful wood decor, and excellent large paintings by a local artist. I had a real ale from Spitting Feathers brewery, and they also had Belgium bottled beer for sale. The accommodation was excellent too. Highly recommended.

For a cheap place to have a bit of fun, this would do. It's not where I'd take a girl I especially cared about, or choose for a honeymoon. If it were someone I only wanted to see briefly and didn't want to get attached, the place might help get that across. Maybe you just want to lie low for a night or two, from the police or otherwise. Your business. The bar is pleasant enough, and nobody bothers you. On one particularly busy night, though, a chap questioned why I was in the men's toilets. Unfortunately, an inappropriate turtle's head had emerged and was ready to do business. I wasn't in the mood to use the urinals with that going on, but this patron took issue with me waiting for the appropriate toilet. Thankfully, I haven't seen him since. I hope he's moved on to bigger and better men's toilets to question other men about what they're doing. Anyway, I hope the place is doing okay. I've driven past a few times and can't tell whether it's permanently closed. Hopefully it isn't.

The beer choice is good, and the band nights are great too. What I like most, though, is how much character the place has kept. It still has gas lamps, old beer pumps and all sorts of old bits and pieces around. Some people might call it a dive, and you do get the odd unusual character in there, but I love the strange atmosphere. Thumbs up from me.

We left after one night and got a refund for that night, though I felt both rooms should have been refunded for the whole stay. The public areas smelled of weed, and I spoke to a woman who said the council had just placed her there. About an hour after we left, the owner called to apologise and said the cleaners had left doors open, so someone may have slipped into the room to use drugs. Avoid at all costs. We had two rooms booked. One was okay apart from flies, which I could put down to it being summer. The other was for my daughter and her friend while they were at Leeds Festival. They found a dirty needle tucked beside the toilet. I reported it through the bar staff, and the manager came to remove it. When I asked why it was there, he kept saying he didn't know and insisted he had the best cleaners around. Later he claimed it wasn't a needle but something for putting liquid in your eye, which clearly didn't look right. He tried to justify it and asked if it had ruined our weekend, which felt like he was having a laugh. Less than an hour later, the girls found a half-full bottle of methadone in a drawer. The owner had no explanation for that either. I asked for the Saturday night to be refunded for both rooms because we weren't staying any longer. He processed a refund for one night, and I didn't have time to argue. I just wanted us all out of there.