This was a quick visit as we diverted from the main road to try out a good old Holt's house that was new to most of us, bar our Irish chum who'd dodged taxes around here in the 1980s. Back then it was a Whitbread house as Joseph Holt's only took the Orion in the 1990s [1]. Today it has the typical Holt's no-frills ale and atmosphere, and harks back to simpler times with its separate vault (with its own entrance) and lounge. The Orion may have got its name from a landlord in the 1870s and '80s, John Norbury, who had served on HMS Orion, although the pub sign shows a 1930s warship [2]. Whatever the fine details of its history, the Orion is another throwback boozer and one to be celebrated.
Orion, Burton Road, Withington. (c) Gene Hunt at flickr under Creative Commons.
1. www.whatpub.org/guide/004000/Pub004351.htm.
2. http://ackworthborn.blogspot.com/2010/04/abc-wednesday-o-is-for-orion.html.
My 3x gt grandfather John Norbury bought the land on Burton Road in 1869 and operated it as a beerhouse and stone-masons yard. He served on the HMS Orion in 1855 in the Crimea.
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