‘Rowdy’ stag and hen events drive landlord to tug out of village pub crawl
An idyllic village pub crawl has become so famous one landlord has taken drastic measures to avoid “abusive, rowdy and inconsiderate” punters.
The Gallon Walk pub crawl spans from Goathland to Egton, two villages in the North Yorkshire Moors. Along the way there are eight pubs, and a pint in each pub adds up to a gallon of beer, hence the name.
Bus loads of drinkers, with groups boasting as many as 60 people, descend upon the idyllic villages along the five-mile crawl which traditionally occurs on a Saturday.
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It has grown a mixed reputation over time, there are many who do it in aid of charity, but there is an increasing number of ‘anti-social’ participants according to the locals.
(Image: Samuel Port)
The walk attracts a mix of stag dos, hen parties, work dos and birthdays.
The valley village of Beck Hole, in Whitby, which only has 17 residents, has one pub which will no longer open its doors to the masses of people stomping through.
Nearby resident and retired plasterer Andrew MacNeil spoke of how ‘noisy’ the groups have become. Andrew said: “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.
“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.
(Image: Samuel Port)
“This weekend there was about eight women [in one group] but it sounded like about a hundred.”
Local pub the Birch Hall Inn has, in fact, taken the severe measures to avoid passing trade from the pub-crawl, after it’s landlady became fed up with the rowdy visitors.
Glenys Crampton, 72, has been running the tiny pub, the size of a small living room, for about 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 is a no-nonsense landlady who’d grown sick and tired of the ‘anti-social’ behaviour of the massive groups attending. She’s branded the groups as ‘abusive, rowdy and inconsiderate.’
(Image: Samuel Port)
The tiny pub is probably the smallest in Yorkshire, its size similar to a small living room, with about 15ft of space.
It first opened in the 1860s, according to the landlady, and was a prime location on the Gallon Walk – but it’s always been her desire to run a pub which harbours a tranquil atmosphere for the locals and those on a peaceful ramble through the valley.
Fearing the pub-crawl would put an end to her ‘43 years of uneventful landlady-ship,’ she took drastic measures in 2019. Gladys decided to not open on Saturdays, the most popular day of trade for most bars, to completely avoid having to deal with the ‘gallon-walkers’.
Glady explained: “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 dos, people out for a birthday. They were abusive, rowdy, inconsiderate. Not all of them, by any means, but the majority.
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