South Shields named among the top places in England for a pub crawl, beating national favourites including the Leeds Otley Run and London's Monopoly Run

According to events organisers Hen Weekends and Stag Weekends, the town deserves to rank among a select group of top locations to head to, based on the number of number of bars available.

And while it may not have the most overall, analysts ruled it did come close to topping the table compared to other areas surveyed, with an impressive average of 60 pubs and bars per 10 square miles.

In England, this placed it second only to Huddersfield, which could count 65 watering holes over the same distance.

Sinia Jazwi, landlady of The New Cyprus Hotel, in Chichester Road, was not surprised by the results, with her premises hosting regular events and packed with punters every weekend.

She said: “We are overwhelmed to be a South Shields pub in the heart of the community after opening in a pandemic.

"We are proud to be a South Shields pub renowned for an amazing busy pub with a great atmosphere that is very affordable.”

Other publicans at some of the town’s best-known hostelries were more shocked by the findings, but equally thrilled by the results, such as Edward Hilton, of the Sand Dancer.

He said: “I'm surprised it's been listed in a poll for pub crawls, the coast is a beautiful location and we tend to see people head down and stay for a few hours enjoying food, drinks in the sun and our live music.

"The trade has changed a lot in the past few years and we open early for breakfast and coffee, and our food trade has doubled.

"The town winning awards for it's beaches and having national write ups and TV appearances has raised the profile.”

Chris Lincoln, general manager at The New Sundial, was also pleased with the analysis.

He added: “We’re thrilled to hear that South Shields is such a top location for a pub crawl.

“The result has come as a surprise, although with such a strong community and beautiful coastline, we can understand why people want to venture out and enjoy the pubs and bars South Shields has to offer.”

According to Ahrefs data, the search term “pub crawl” is believed to receive an average of 2,600 searches every month in the UK through search engine Google.

In the USA this almost triples to 6,600 for the Americanised term “bar crawl”.

Alicia Curry, of Hen Weekends & Stag Weekends, said: “In many smaller towns across England, they’ve adapted massively to their dwindling number of high street shoppers by focussing on offering experiences in the forms of restaurants, bars, and pubs - the type of retail that you can’t quite replicate at home.”

“England already has many infamous pub crawls, such as the Otley Run in Leeds and the Monopoly Run in London, but it appears that our smaller towns and cities are equally as good and probably much cheaper to take part in.

"I expect to see many more well-known crawls set up over the next few years, dotted around the country.”

Top 10 pub crawl locations according to number of pubs and bars per 10 square miles:

Huddersfield - 65

South Shields - 60

Shrewsbury - 56

Portsmouth - 54

Bath and Norwich - 52

Bristol - 50

Oldham, Liverpool and Darlington - 49

The top five friendliest pubs in South Shields include:

Harton Hop House – 4.8 rating from 57 Google reviews

The Look Out Inn – 4.8 rating from 40 Google reviews

The River View – 4.7 rating from 177 Google reviews

The Steamboat – 4.6 rating from 572 Google reviews

The White Horse Inn – 4.6 rating from 200 Google reviews