A Crowdfunder has been launched to try and save a traditional pub in Stretford that’s at risk of being turned into flats.
The Robin Hood pub on Barton Road has been left in a state of disrepair since it closed in 2018, but a team of locals think it still has the potential to be an ‘amazing community pub’.
They’re hoping to raise enough money – £5000 – to pay for surveys and legal advice so they can try to save the space.
Pictures taken inside the pub show that it’s riddled with damp and mould, with broken floorboards, crumbling ceilings, and boarded-up windows.
But it’s also a grand Edwardian building, with an ornate red brick facade, stained glass windows, beautiful tiles and bags of charm.
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The Robin Hood was bought by developers who intended to turn it into flats and build houses in the large car park.
Those behind the Crowdfunder campaign, who describe themselves as ‘a band of merry Mancunians’, say they believe ‘this space is part of Stretford’s Heritage and should be restored to a traditional pub for the whole community to enjoy’.
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Inside the Robin Hood pub in Stretford. Credit: Instagram, @savetherobinhood
Inside the Robin Hood pub in Stretford. Credit: Instagram, @savetherobinhood
Inside the Robin Hood pub in Stretford. Credit: Instagram, @savetherobinhood
Inside the Robin Hood pub in Stretford. Credit: Instagram, @savetherobinhood
The campaign states: “Stretford has some great bars, but with no other traditional pubs in our town centre, the loss of this building would leave a hole at the heart of our ever expanding community that we’ll never mend. They just don’t build pubs like this anymore do they?”
It continues: “We hope to reach an agreement with the developers. Then the real work begins, there’ll be more funds to raise and we’ll be setting up a Community Benefit Society and offering everyone in the community a chance to have a share of the pub!
New Manchester restaurant receives rave review as another is slammed as ‘torture’
Daisy Jackson
Pip, a new restaurant in Manchester, has received a rave national review this week – a review which slammed another restaurant in the same feature.
Food critic William Sitwell wrote in his review in The Telegraph that Pip is charming, refined, and fabulous.
“Bravo, Pip. Pip pip!” he wrote in the glowing write-up on the new restaurant, which stands at the foot of the new Treehouse Hotel and has the acclaimed Mary-Ellen McTague at its helm.
Sitwell’s Telegraph review particularly raved about dishes including Lancashire hot pot (‘fabulously good’), a wild garlic soup (‘a gorgeous thing’), and an apple trifle (‘a gift from heaven’).
But while it was all good for Pip, there were significantly less positive adjectives heaped on another restaurant in Manchester.
In fact, he said that Pip is ‘a great-value tonic’ for the ‘brash (and pricey) torture’ across town.
That restaurant was KAJI, formerly known as MUSU, which he said was ‘all tummies, bald heads, tattoos and heat’.
Sitwell said that while the service and sashimi are good at KAJI, the ‘place is afflicted by some overbearing cooking that cheapens the noble name of Japanese cuisine’.
He wrote: “Lamb chops fail the tender test and are properly wrecked sitting on a vulgar pond of sticky “tomato ponzu”. No beast should die to have that stuff squirted anywhere near it.
“And Kaji is a Japanese gaff without sake. Which is like opening a British pub in Tokyo and forgetting to put an ale on tap.”
Sharing the review, Pip wrote: “Thankyou @telegraph and @williamsitwell for the fantastic feature. We’re so proud of our team here.”
Milk Maids, Bolton – The family-run ice cream parlour on an award-winning farm
Daisy Jackson
Ice cream doesn’t come much fresher than those served at Milk Maids – in fact, you’ll be standing right on the family farm where the cows that produce the milk live, as you tuck into your scoop.
This unassuming dairy farm in Bolton has been in operation for decades, and in the same family for generations.
But it’s when sisters Fiona and Rebecca saw the full potential of all that award-winning milk being produced on their farm that Milk Maids was born.
This ice cream parlour on Dearden’s Farm in Over Hulton is now one of the hottest spots in Greater Manchester, especially when the weather is similarly hot.
Every month they release a whole batch of flavours, all made fresh daily (you can literally see Fiona legging it across the yard with buckets of milk to make fresh batches), with May specials including white chocolate and sea salt caramel, raspberry cookie, and passionfruit pavlova.
Milk Maids, Bolton – The family-run ice cream parlour on an award-winning farm
Cones can be filled with molten chocolate or pistachio creme before your ice cream is scooped and pressed into the cone.
Or you can have your chosen flavour whizzed up into a milkshake, served in a milk bun, or presented in an insulated take-home box for later.
We could wax lyrical about how good this ice cream is, but the queues really do speak for themselves, and you should go and get in it right now.
Daisy Jackson -
7th June 2022 
