Description: To completely finish us off, our friend who owns a holiday home in Whitby took us to his "local", the Black Horse, on the main cobbled street on the old town side of Whitby. This is more of a locals pub and I can imagine it being pretty much as it was when Bram Stoker used to visit and possible drop off for a beer or two while pondering his plotline for Dracula. It was pretty busy for a Monday evening in November which is always good to see given the number of pubs closing down in the UK.
The building has been a pub since the 1500s and is one of the two oldest pubs in Whitby. It was also used as a brothel in the dim and distant past so I'm sure the walls could tell a tale or two. Another interesting fact about the Black Horse is that it has one of the oldest bars in Europe dating from the 1880s (most pubs did not have a separate serving area before then).
The pub has two main rooms, a little snug which faces onto the street, and down a corridor to a larger long and narrow room at the rear. The pub serves some wonderful real ale and I'm afraid to say we drank rather too much of it as it slipped down very well indeed. The Black Horse is also one of those rare pubs that sells snuff (not that I'm a fan of the stuff) but the smokers in our party appreciated a tobacco product they didn't have to smoke and which they could use indoors.
The seating is cosy and you can't help but get close with the folks sitting next to us; fortunately in our case it was a sozzled older couple with two very sweet and friendly dogs. With a pint of fine well kept ale and a dogs head in my lap I could have stayed all night (in fact we almost did).
The Black Horse isn't particularly a foody place but it does offer a few nibbles including a lovely looking cheeseboard, a fresh seafood selection and a choice of olives. Again, if it weren't for the monster fish and chips we had enjoyed at the Pier Inn I would have happily partook of the offers here.
To sum up, we were perfectly happy in this traditional little bar and remembered what pubs are all about; drinking, chatting and making new friends
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