£2.59 pint? I'll drink to that!

IT'S THE nation's local. Students, couples and families, stag and hen dos, old fellas and young lads and lasses, if you like a drink, chances are you've had a few in Wetherspoons.

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But which is the cheapest Spoons in Greater Manchester? In the interests of public service journalism I decided to find out.

According to the UK Cheap Tipple Finder website - using a pint of Carling as the benchmark - it's the Robert Shaw in Westhoughton, Bolton.

Brilliantly named after the locally-born, Oscar nominated actor who starred as the grizzled, seasoned shark hunter Captain Quint in Jaws, the pub opened in 2002.

Based in the former Lo-Cost supermarket building on the old mining town's handsome high street, it's a typically cavernous Spoons, with a few tables and chairs out front and a large, smart beer garden out back.

Obviously there's the now famous bespoke Wetherspoons carpet - a burgundy and beige jumble of swirls while local history photographs line the walls, including a display on the catastrophic Pretoria pit disaster of 1910 in which 344 men and boys were killed.