Customers travel by train and bus to 'Merseyside's best pub' where they 'become part of the family'

The Roscoe Head Pub on Roscoe Street, Liverpool
-Credit:Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo


Being named the best pub in Merseyside is no mean feat. When it comes to pubs, our region boasts strength in depth that other areas could only dream of - as the ECHO's recent series on best pub crawls has highlighted.

So The Roscoe Head can hold its head high, having this month been named Merseyside's best pub by The Telegraph. The broadsheet named its favourite pub in every English county, with The Britons Protection praised in Greater Manchester, The Castle in Macclesfield taking the title in Cheshire and Preston's The Black Horse named the best in Lancashire.

About The Roscoe, found on Roscoe Street in the city centre, it said: "Landlady Carol Ross fought for ten years to buy this pub and save it from potential closure, and we should all be grateful. The Roscoe is small but wonderful, with four rooms, good beer and pies, and, invariably, excellent conversation. There are more physically arresting pubs nearby - Liverpool is blessed in that regard - but none of them beats The Roscoe Head."

ADVERTISEMENT

READ MORE: I blind taste tested Guinness against its rival and one thing stood out

READ MORE: Liverpool pubs that stood strong and refused to give in

The Roscoe Head is a fine pub and deserves its praise from The Telegraph. One of the oldest in the city, it opened as a pub back in the 1830s and its name commemorates Liverpool historian, poet and leading campaigner for the abolition of slavery - William Roscoe.

For me, the pub always features on a pub crawl around the Georgian Quarter, towards the end as you head down into town itself - and it is always a stop I look forward to. Its fine selection of real ale means it is also the only pub in the North of England to appear in every edition of the CAMRA Good Beer Guide since it was first published in 1974, so when you go to the Roscoe and you will always find a new beer worth trying.

The layout of the pub also makes it special - spread across four compact rooms, it encourages conversation and makes for a great place to lose an afternoon, especially during winter. It's also run exactly how a pub should be and has a great story behind it.

ADVERTISEMENT

Landlady Carol Ross' family have worked at the pub for the past 40 years and Carol herself battled for a decade to take it out of the hands of companies who may have closed it, as The Telegraph noted.

Last year, Carol told the ECHO that customers at the pub "become part of the family". She said: "You know the customers, then they have their babies, then you know their kids. It’s successive really - they're like your neighbours.

"Some people get a bus to here, a train to here, for the beer. We've got no music, no television - it’s a pure conversation pub and that’s what is special about it.

"The tradition is being kept. Ten years ago, that was when we did our biggest refurb and customers were asked if they wanted music then and the answer was a stern no.

Carol Ross behind the bar in The Roscoe Head
Carol Ross behind the bar in The Roscoe Head -Credit:Colin Lane/Liverpool Echo

"When it was brewery owned, they wanted fruit machines and I said no, my dad never had them and it's small enough. But sometimes small is beautiful."

ADVERTISEMENT

The Roscoe Head deserves its time in the limelight, but as The Telegraph wrote, Liverpool is indeed blessed with many great pubs. This is not the only recent example of the newspaper praising our city in that regard.

After last year's Labour Party conference came to an end, Telegraph columnist Madeline Grant wrote: "Liverpool boasts a thriving pub culture like no other. From live music at The Grapes to the splendid isolation of The Baltic Fleet, still standing firm on the dock.

"From the must-sees: the famed sloping floor of The Globe and the Beatles’ haunt of Ye Cracke, to the hidden gems of The Denbigh Castle and The Belvedere. Or my favourite: the joyously crowded Peter Kavanagh’s, where ornate ashtrays are built into the tables waiting, like Drake’s Drum, for the moment when they might be called into noble use again. London, a city that post-10pm becomes a bastion of Cromwellian dourness, could certainly learn a thing or two from the Liverpudlian nightlife."

When it comes to boozers, nobody does it like us. More power to pubs like The Roscoe Head.