Yahoo News Tiny North Yorkshire pub takes drastic step to avoid 'abusive, rowdy' Gallon Walkers
A quaint Yorkshire village, once a must-visit for pub-goers on the infamous Gallon Walk, has been forced to dramatically change its approach due to the 'rowdy and inconsiderate' behaviour of large groups. The Gallon Walk encompasses two North Yorkshire Moors hamlets, Goathland and Egton.
Tailored including eight pubs throughout the journey, the tradition involves drinking a pint at each venue; thus equalling a gallon of beer, marking out the namesake.
The five-mile route through picturesque landscapes sees coachloads of drinkers, with groups reportedly amounting to 60 individuals, arriving mostly on Saturdays. This practice has gathered a dual reputation over time some conducting the walk for charitable causes, while others noted for more 'anti-social' behaviour.
Attracting various types of celebrations like stag parties, hen events, office gatherings, and birthdays, it now casts a huge ripple on the serene village of Beck Hole in Whitby. Here, which only has 17 residents, its only pub has firmly decided against catering for the flock of pub-crawlers.
Andrew MacNeil, one of the locales who is also a retired plasterer, opened up about the escalating noise from these visiting groups. He described: "You get what you call gallon-walkers, they set off from Goathland and they go to Egton and they call in on every pub on the way. If pubs would serve them, like, as they're getting a bit of a bad name, now", reports Yorkshire Live.
"They're very rowdy. If they haven't finished their drink, they'll take the glass and dump it on the way. The pub here doesn't like to serve them, they'll shut if they know they're coming. It's a bit of a takeover, well, it can be. It's really noisy. You can get busloads of men and women."
"This weekend there was about eight women [in one group] but it sounded like about a hundred."
A local pub, Birch Hall Inn, has taken drastic measures to avoid the passing trade from the pub-crawl. This tiny pub, likely the smallest in Yorkshire, is about the size of a small living room, with roughly 15ft of space.
First opened in the 1860s, according to the landlady, it was a prime spot on the Gallon Walk. Glenys Crampton, 72, has been running this tiny pub, the size of a small living room, for approximately 43 years.
Glenys took over the pub with her brother Colin Jackson in 1981. He retired in 2004 and she has since been running it with her husband Neil, 60.
The 72 year old no-nonsense landlady has grown weary of the 'anti-social' behaviour of the large groups attending. She's labelled the groups as 'abusive, rowdy and inconsiderate.
Her ambition has always been to run a pub that provides a peaceful atmosphere for the locals and those enjoying a quiet ramble through the valley.
The landlord of the Sun Inn feared that an escalating pub crawl trend would tarnish her 43 years of peaceful landlady tenure and took drastic action in 2019. Making an unconventional move, Gladys resolved to close the pub on Saturdays - a vital trading day for most taverns - simply to prevent having to accommodate the so-called 'gallon-walkers'.
Speaking of the incident, she confessed: "There is a thing called the Gallon Walk. In the past we had served them, but the numbers just got beyond us in this little place."
She continued: "We just don't open on a Saturday because it usually only happens on a Saturday. It was mainly the numbers but also, their behaviour was a bit anti-social and in a little space like this it was very hard to deal with because you also have your other people who come here to enjoy it while it's quiet."
Describing her decision as tactical, Gladys revealed that the strategy to shutter on Saturdays was adopted to dodge all fuss and to ensure adherence to the legal requisites of running a public house, which has its own locally-brewed beer on tap and boasts locally-sourced pies.
Expressing her frustration at the situation, Gladys admitted: "It just wasn't working for us so we stopped doing it. The only way to stop it is to just not open as you can't selectively serve six people but not those 60 people."
"It was a mixture, works does, people out for a birthday. They were abusive, rowdy, inconsiderate. Not all of them, by any means, but the majority."
"When there's 50 or 60, then another 40 arrive, and then another 20, in this little space, it would need three more staff and a doorman to be legal in terms of capacity limits. After 43 years of, touch wood, uneventful landlady-ship, I didn't want to go out on some sort of incident. It can happen when you get groups, when one rubs up against another in a little space and we're not here for stress."
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