Long before Covid, I was a fan of the snug, the booth, the alcove. Call me antisocial, but I prefer to focus on the pint than the bar-room bustle or “talent”. Consequently, Liverpool’s Bridewell pub has my ideal layout, with five cosy cells – formerly used to house miscreants – providing private, dimly lit spaces for a drinker with or without friends.
The pub was recently voted Liverpool’s best by Camra – despite stiff competition – and while the gong is mainly down to its impressive range of bottled, tap and cask ales, for me it also wins on historical interest. It’s in the Ropewalks area, just west of Chinatown, where rope-making and chandlery services were once provided to ships. The pub is inside an 1840s police station, which no doubt housed the occasional drunken sailor; the high red brick wall was designed to keep nosey parkers out and crooks in. Bridewells were prisons for petty offenders or houses of correction, named after the first such establishment in the former Bridewell Palace, near Fleet Street in London.
