Home > Lancashire > Ormskirk > Ropers Arms Ropers Arms
Date of photo: 2015	Picture source: Peter Jones
The Ropers Arms was situated at 52 Wigan Road.
I've lived in Ormskirk 20 years, with the Ropers Arms as the nearest landmark I could give to taxi drivers or visitors - until it was knocked down ?3-4 years ago (a year or two after it had finally stopped trading). I was only a very occasional customer, simply because none of my drinking friends are close neighbours, and my social life's always been further afield. I think it had rather a mixed history in terms of how it was managed, and there were rumours about some of the clientele not being the most upstanding citizens - but I never experienced any unfriendliness there. Nor can I remember any undue disturbance from the place. It was a TV sports pub with a lounge and mini-lounge seating adapted to allow viewing of various sets - I'd go in for a quiet watch of a match, if I was at home and Stoke were on (ie, not that often!) There was at least one real ale on, I think, every time I went, which was all right with me. There generally seemed to be six to ten people chatting or bantering in the old-fashioned bar area, the only person I knew by name being Gary, who knew all the regulars. He used to work for a local car dealer, was a friend of the management and had helped with renovating work after a lengthy closure a few years before. I think it simply lost out to the way a lot of us live today: some distance from where we work and from our main social lives, so even if we still regularly use pubs these are town centre ones for the better convenience of all, or handy for our work or social activity. Another significant factor - in my opinion - when thinking why pubs such as the Ropers, and the Windmill close by on Wigan Road, have struggled or failed to keep going, is the changing habits of students. Particularly since the liberalised licensing hours came in, students go out to drink and "party" later than traditional pub hours, and rather than mixing it with locals and older drinkers earlier on, they buy far cheaper booze at supermarkets and knock it back on campus or in their houses and then get a taxi to their venue of choice. Wigan Road is a big student area, which in my day would have meant the local pubs (of whatever quality) were full and lively. Not any more.
Frank Kennedy (January 2021)
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