121 The Summit - Thornham

First  visited : 17  February  2016

The  Summit  , bizarrely, is  at  an  obviously  lower  elevation  than  The  Pleasant,  on  the  Rochdale  side  of  the  hill. It  more  or  less  straddles  the  Oldham / Rochdale  border. I  suspected  that  the  current  building  is  not  the  original  pub  and  a  little  digging   clarifies  that  when  we   went  past  in  1978  it  looked  like  this :

 

I  don't  know  when  or  why  the  old  building  was  demolished  but  the  pub  is  now  part  of  the  Flaming  Grill  chain.  Simon  and  I  went  there  for  tea  tonight  and  it  was  quite  good  though  we  had  to  wait  a  long  time  and  there  was  a  pile-up  of  dirty  glasses  on   the  bar  that  stayed  there  all  evening   so  there's  room  for  improvement  in  the  organisation. Maybe  they  were  just  caught  on  the  hop ; it  was  certainly  busier  than  I  expected. The  staff  were  all  very  friendly  and  obliging. If  you  go  through  the  internet  beforehand  they  give  you  a  20%  off  voucher.

Inside  it's  quite  large  with  the  obligatory  TV  screen  at  the  opposite  end  from  the  main  dining  area.

120 The Pleasant - Thornham

First  visited : 13  February  2016

The  Pleasant  is  situated  at  the  top  of  Rochdale  Road  before  it  starts  plunging  into  Rochdale  and  becomes  Oldham  Road.

The  Pleasant  lives  up  to  its  name. It's  relatively  small, friendly  and  spotlessly  clean. There  was  no  one  in  the  nicely  set-out  Lounge  Bar  this  afternoon  but  a  few  people  playing  pool  in  the  snug. There's  some  outside  tables  in  the  back  yard  but  you'd  hardly  call  it  a  beer  garden. The  main  drawback  with  it  is  that  there's  no  parking  facilities  at  all  and  I  had  to  park  quite  a  distance  up  Springfield  Lane  to  the  side  to  get  to  it.