The King's Arms

This is The King's Arms* at Hale. If you're every travelling up the A6 between Carnforth and Milnthorpe, you might drop in for a bite to eat: just look at these Trip Advisor listings!

My association with the pub dates back nearly twenty years, though. When my first marriage finally ground to a halt, I moved to Beetham on my ex-wife's recommendation that I put some distance between myself and Kirkby Lonsdale. (I shouldn't have listened; it just made everything more complicated with the logistics around the kids.)

There was a pub in Beetham but the bar was really little more than a holding area for the restaurant (which was supposed to be very good). However, my boss lived in Hale and she recommended I walk down to the King's Arms if I fancied a drink in the evening. And, as I didn't see my daughters during the week, I would take this advice whenever I was home (I was working part of the week in Scotland). 

It was a proper community pub. It would be largely deserted up until around half-eight, nine o'clock, and then it would gradually fill up with people from Hale and anywhere else within walking distance. The twenty minute walk there was lovely in the summer; I would walk along the lower edge of the woods above Beetham Hall, and take the pavement alongside the A6 on the way back. Winter: well, I wrapped warm and waterproof, and stuck to the road both ways. 

I must say, the King's Arms and its welcoming, friendly, and generous clientele made those first few months of being separated much easier. I still feel like I owe those guys a pint.

*I'm assuming the apostrophe, of course; the signs and online references have erred on the side of insecurity and simply omitted one. 

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