The oldest pub in the city. A good place to begin and a quiet time.

Walk off busy Briggate up the tiny alleyway, there since the 18th Century for the merchants and marketeers. 

Dilly dally and delay the moment of entering the premises by stopping for photos down the lane. Stained glass, wooden benches, people have stopped by here with friends and without for half a millennium.

Groups and pairs mill around the outside tables. Beginning to feel a little awkward at the task I have set myself and steel myself for settling down with a drink, maybe joining the drinkers outside. But it is 5 degrees and there is a wintry chill in the air. For this first foray the chill in the air will serve as enough of an excuse to keep inside where it is quieter. For now. It is only 4 o’clock.

Push open the bar, the inside clear of people and chatter, perfect for today’s solitary supping.

Beer: Northern Monk, Eternal, 4.1% ABV, one pint in a straight up pint glass.

Amber coloured. Steady and still with a slim head.

I am self-conscious knowing I am headed to a table alone. The notepad and pen add a sense of purpose and reason. But why do I feel that I might be judged, questioned? 

I choose a table in the corner. Today and now feels like a between time, a time to prepare for the evening ahead, a time to take things slowly.

The scent of the beer is pulling me in for a sip.

A couple comes in and walks slowly through the bar area. There is no rush. Not for the 4pm suppers of ale.

The Turk’s Head is a pub with a history. When would the first women have come through the doors. To work? As owners? Were they frowned upon?

In the early days of regulation of the sale of ale through licensing back in the seventeenth century, women could apply for a license in just the same way as the menfolk could. Although if Shakespeare’s portrayal of Mistress Quickly a century before is anything to go by, hostelry landladies were not necessarily the most respected of women in society. 

Tiles, blue tiles, wall tiles. Colour somewhere between sky on a winter’s day, a cold. clear winter’s day, and cornflowers coming out for the summer. The bar is decorated with shelves of empty bottles lined up, lit up and labelled. Arsenic, codeine, cod liver oil; come and choose your poison.

Pause for another sip.

Another group comes in. Atmosphere is lifting. Bustling and becoming busier. Laughter, music up and lights down.

Wide broad floorboards scrubbed and varnished. How many feet have stood upon those boards over time? How many tales have been told and friendships made and cemented and broken over a pint or more?

People drift in and order, pay at the bar, then disappear back to the outdoor tables. Willing to sit or stand in the cold and let their fingers become numb while their tipple goes down.

Half a pint down and beginning to feel more comfortable sitting alone.

Hard to say how I would feel drinking by myself at a busier time or without the excuse of the pen in my hand and the paper in front of me.

Coffee grinder whirring into action, music a mixed bag of afternoon cosy americana. Babbling bubbling chatter increases as more people wander in and choose to stay in.

There’s something comforting in the muffled voices of people around, no specific words pickable out of their nearby conversations, just being in amongst others after so long not in company.

Still more people outside than in.

Reflecting briefly on the power of age-induced invisibility. I feel comfortable in this space now as the beer goes down. Would I have felt similar aged 20, 30, even 40? There are benefits to being able to blend in the background.

Bar is comfortably full now, 2cm left of the pint. 

Sitting, absorbing atmosphere as it grows. To be in a space from empty to filling up, taking time to notice the shift, the lift of the mood around.

No other solitary drinkers so far. One other woman at a table alone, but with the definite air of waiting for others to turn up.

The self-consciousness I had at the start of the sitting down has gone, but is that the beer? 

Next time will try somewhere closer to home. Time to move on.

Questions for next time: do I need to be braver? Go for a drink at a busier time? Talk to the bar staff? Keep the notepad for occasional notes and look up more? To be continued.

The fortunes of female drinkers as customers have risen and fallen and risen again through the centuries. Over time drinking alcohol began to be associated with immorality and women faced a greater burden of shame for showing their faces in a public house than any man would. 

For much of the twentieth century women would not even have been allowed in the bar area. Many pubs even had a specific area, sometimes known as a snug, where women were allowed to gather.

Nerves jangling coming here, it is my most local local. One of my saviours during the endless lockdowns. My journey comes from Leeds’ oldest alehouse to one of its newest.

Beginning life just as everything everywhere shut down, the brewery kept open with deliveries only, and then collection throughout. It now feels like a friend despite my unsociable reluctance to start real conversations with people even here.

Most of my visits have been solo, but most of them have been to buy and take home, even since the taproom has opened for sitting in.

Beer: My Horse Came Fourth, Horsforth Brewery. 3.5% ABV

A passionfruit pint in the taproom.

Fruity beer, not sweet but not a classic sour either. Chosen this time for the lower alcohol rating but full of flavour and decisively added to my drink-this-one-again list.

Friendly and low key inside. White walls left rough and a stone hearth. There’s always a solo drinker at the bar, I’m still hanging back at a table this time. Cellar bar feel, local shopping street up the steps. A row of taps in the wall, a range of Horsforth and other flavours and brews. A genuine local champion. Family friendly and open to all. Dog-friendly. Photos of the dogs who have been welcomed before.

There’s a view through to where all the magic happens in the on-site brewery, and space to sit, to meet, to drink. This is a real ale beer-lovers stop-off.

A third of a pint down.

Challenge myself to speak to the bar staff.

Query: do you see women coming in on their own? Would you notice if they did?

The answer is no but even as I ask, I wonder, does it matter if we are noticed? If we feel safe, confident, unperturbed by being noticed? In this suburban space away from the city centre the room feels enormously full of welcome and empty of threats.

Until 1970 in England, a woman without a male escort could legally be refused entry to a pub or restaurant. And it wasn’t until after 1982, when a specific discrimination case was brought to court, that English pubs then no longer had the right to refuse to serve women on the grounds of their gender.

Foodies’ pub on a Bank Holiday Sunday. This is another between time. Lunchtime diners have finished their roasts and the evening drinkers have not yet arrived. Buy a half for a short stop en route home from the North York Moors.

The sun is out and preparing itself for sinking.

Choose a table outside to catch the last rays, sinking into cliches.

Shorts, sandals and sunglasses surround, the great British Bank Holiday with cooling air and gritted teeth all round.

Beer: Moonshine, Abbeydale Brewery, 4.1% ABV. Just a half this time.

That is a very drinkable drink. Pale, clear. Honeyed in colour and in taste.

White Hart sits in a corner in the village. A passing point for walkers and travellers meandering home and a longer stop for food lovers.

This is the first place I have sat and seen other women alone. Just the one though, on the phone, not drinking.

Sitting outside this time. A pause between moving, travelling, talking, doing, arriving, domestication.

Stone flags, wicker tables. Click clack of heels on the flags, purposeful strides pass by me into the pub and towards the bar. Traffic. Ebbs. Flows. Stops and starts.

Birds chatter. There’s a red phone box in view, belisha beacon on a striped pole. The wind moves leaves, moves menus, moves me to add a jumper, a jacket.

Pause amongst people but not with people. Sit. Think about the space between being with others and being alone. Take time over the short drink before arriving home.

The phrase ‘me time.’ Is this what it means? Space to sit. Think. Time.

Time to move on.

According to the British Beer and Pub Association, 54% of British pub staff are female. Figures on how the drinking is split across genders is difficult to find, but the perception is that women are still in the minority when it comes to seeking out a good pint.

Walked along the canal trying to beat off the remaining self-consciousness before arrival. Early evening walk on a Bank Holiday.

Abandoning domestic duties to take this project to its endpoint. Wondering as I walk will this new habit of visiting bars and pubs alone be something I repeat. Wondering if it could ever be a wholly joyful practice without the niggling fear that others find it a little sad, a little melancholy.

Livelier atmosphere today, it’s the latest I have arrived and a holiday. Getting used to the process, get through the doors, buy at the bar, wander casually looking for a table.

Having read about women of previous decades being confined to the Snug I look for signs of a nook that might have held such a space. Holds the feel of a traditional pub but with a trendier crowd. Feel comfortable that my presence won’t cause a stir.

Bridge Inn: positioned at the point where River Aire meets Leeds-Liverpool canal, nature’s watery drift meets man’s-built waterway. A stone’s throw from the ruined Abbey.

Maybe it’s the times and places I have chosen, but in every one of these stops I have felt safe. Any discomfort has been entirely from my own self-consciousness, lack of confidence in the moment, or reflective mood at the time.

Having a notebook and pen in front of me and a mission in my mind has helped relieve that minor discomfort.

Honestly could not honestly say that any of that self-consciousness is down to being a woman in these spaces or simply the fact of being a human being alone in a social setting. Most likely many or most men, women and non-binary folks would feel the same.

There are advantages to aging as a woman and this ability to blend into an environment is one. I came in here with no expectation that anyone would approach me for unsolicited conversation, and I am safely locked in my own train of thought without interruption.

Beer: Bitter by Kirkstall Brewery, 4% ABV

Classic bitter. Smooth, amber ale, pulled to perfection with a narrow head. No other solitary drinkers here at this time. Mostly groups and pairs, chattering, sauntering through, laughing. A young girl plays the harmonica, not with any genuine musical sense but not terribly either.

As a writer this might be the way forward for when there is a slump in writing flow. Go sit somewhere amongst chatter and hubble bubble. Notice the surroundings.

Table is slightly too high for comfortable or sustained writing; the lower ones were all occupied. Perch on a soft leather seat, one foot on the floor ready for an easy escape. Downstairs bar is getting ready to wind down and let the upper ground floor take over for the evening.

Ready for the stroll back along the canal, will thoughts wander in a different direction now that there has been a stop for beer?

And here are my final meandering thoughts about this journey. 

No bad experiences throughout. This could become a new way of finding headspace, with occasional stops for low or no alcohol thrown in to keep it light. Mindful drinking when friends are busy with domestic dramas, just overloaded with work or too far away. 

My perception, my realisation, is that consciously or not I have chosen the places I knew I would feel safe, and I have taken on something I would have felt uncomfortable with a decade or more in the past. 

Age does bring some privileges.

My advice to those thinking they need to get out but don’t have someone to sip with - go out anyway, no one is watching, no one is taking notice, enjoy your own company in other surroundings. 

And take a notebook.