As Paul drove south through the rain on the M6 in Lancashire, my job was to find somewhere for us to stay for the night. It had been a long day, meandering south from Angus (the tranquil county in northeast Scotland, not a Caledonian friend) via the coast of Fife.
With so many road trip variables, I had left it late to book. Sunday night sees soft demand for hotels across the UK, even in hotspots like Wigan. The Sabbath is almost always a buyer’s market when seeking a budget hotel.
Yet my usual go-to, Premier Inn, was nudging towards £100 a night. So I cast my net wider, and decided to give Wetherspoon’s Brocket Arms Hotel a try. At just £50.40 a night, I would not need to share a room with Paul (which in the past we have done on budgetary grounds).
It was a prudent choice, because JD Wetherspoon has just surpassed Premier Inn in a Which? ranking of chain hotels. The consumer specialists now recommend it as a “great value” place to stay.
I like ’Spoons pubs, and not (just) because you can get a pint for under the £7 norm in London. They provide excellent professional support in the shape of venues without loud music but with lots of pluggery, good WiFi and food or drink just a click of an app away. I happen to be writing this in The Beehive at Gatwick Airport – a Wetherspoon pub which serves as The Independent’s South Terminal bureau during times of flight disruption. Invest £3.50, and unlimited tea and coffee is yours for the afternoon.
Yet I approached Mesnes (pronounced “Mains”) Road in northern Wigan with some trepidation. This was due to previous experience with pub-hotel combos of the less-expensive variety. My footwear has still not recovered from sticking to the drink-soaked carpets at non-Wetherspoon budget locations from Folkestone to Leeds. And I lost sleep I will never get back due to the noise from raucous bars below, along with bedding that was 90 per cent synthetic.
The omens were better in Wigan. My room had recently been refurbished. Clean and comfortable, with still and sparkling bottles of water, tea and coffee, decent WiFi and a lighting system that does not require a training course to operate.
Wetherspoon always shows impressive attention to local history. The Brocket Arms is relatively young – opened in 1957 by Lord Brocket, chairman of a brewery and therefore able to attach his name to an inn if he wished.
“It had seven guest rooms, some with television sets,” the narrative relates. Now there are 28, all with TVs.
Downstairs in the bar, the social historians have been at work, finding pictures of a soup kitchen during the Miners’ Strike in 1893, which dragged on for five months.
The Brocket Arms does not offer 24-hour room service, but almost anything you want is on tap.
Once settled in, I sent a message to my friend Dylan Harris, music promoter-turned-founder of Wigan-based Lupine Travel. “Come for a pint,” I wrote (Worthington’s or Bud Light £1.99, for those who think two quid is too much for a drink).
Things turned slightly surreal. He came up with the greatest excuse ever: “Ah that would have been great but I'm in a small village outside of Xi’an [China] with Damon Albarn.”
Yet despite accompanying the front man of Blur in the exotic east, Dylan took time to recall the exotic northwest of England: “Glad I'm no longer promoting gigs in Wigan. It used to get quite rowdy in that hotel post-gig, when the bands decamped back to their rooms!”
In fact, all was quiet on the northwest front. Paul said it had been his best night for ages.
Next morning, from 7am, an industrial-sized breakfast was on offer for £6.59: “Two fried eggs, bacon, two Lincolnshire sausages, baked beans, three hash browns, mushroom, two slices of toast.” Bet you can’t get that in any small villages outside Xi’an.
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