Look how The Cricketers Arms is being transformed

The Cricks, as it is better known, is one of the best pubs in the North West and in 2018 won the gong for the Best Pub in Britain.

However, landlord Andy Evans is not resting on his laurels and has invested heavily in the St Helens pub, which now sports a mainly green frontage.

Andy has spent "quite a bit" to transform the car park into a beautiful flower-filled beer garden, with an extensive floral display and a horse box , which he admits he bought on a whim.

The beer garden and ice cream box (Image: The Cricketers)

This has been converted into Tracey's Ice Cream Box serving ice cream to punters from noon to 8pm.

He's also invested in a Pavilion Summer Kitchen serving barbecued food on Saturday and Sundays (weather permitting) from 3pm to 8pm.

The summer kitchen (Image: The Cricketers)

He's not done there though, and in the works at the Peter Street pub are also developments to the upstairs, subject to planning permission, which he is planning to call Church View.

He explains: "Other than our ladies' toilets, which we have transformed and are beautiful now by the way, the other thing people wanted was to potentially hire space at the pub and for us to serve food.

Toilets have undergone a revamp (Image: The Cricketers)

"We only have a little kitchen here so the plan is to transform upstairs in a dining space where for customers who have booked only, we will serve Sunday dinners and the windows will be changed into French Doors with Juliette balconies to give a view of the church over the road.

"The space can then also generate income if people want to hire the space for parties or whatever, we had permission but it lapsed due to Covid so we've put in for it again and if all goes to plan that will be sorted for late 2024 or early in the New Year."

Andy said: "We had two options really, think we've achieved everything we wanted to with the pub or make it better and we decided to make it even better."

The pub has plans for a new eatery and function room (Image: The Cricketers)

The pub's outdoors sports plenty of greenery (Image: The Cricketers)

The pub will also be staging a number of events this year.

Cricks Fest is an event looking to help those most in need in our community.

The event from August 15 to 18 coincides with rugby league's Magic Weekend - and will see people pay for top beers and ales in the newly transformed beer garden and inside the pub, with staff volunteering their time, meaning 100 per cent of all the profit will go to the Hope Centre and St Helens Food Bank.

Andy said: “We are a good town here at looking after our own and we could sell the pub and move on or look to improve it and help others while we are at it.

“I think Cricks Fest is an important thing and the staff have happily said they will work for no pay to make it happen.

“In this cost-of-living crisis it is important to help that’s why we thought of this drink to feed festival. By buying a drink slightly more than the usual cost, you are feeding people in our town who need it.”