Cricketers Arms

Andy and Denise Evans took over the Cricketers Arms on Peter Street in 2013, when the pub had stood boarded up and had not served cask ale since the 1980s. Within four years they had turned it into the CAMRA National Pub of the Year for 2017, a result built on fourteen handpumps of constantly changing cask ale, real cider and a stone-baked pizza kitchen. In 2020 they added an on-site brewery, Howzat, which now supplies house beers to the Cricketers Arms and to other pubs around St Helens. The pub still fills for live sport across its screens, and an outside bar takes the overflow on match days and for events. It holds a five-star Cask Marque rating for cellar hygiene, proof that a pub rebuilt from nothing by its own landlords can compete with anywhere in the country.