The parkruns with a Wetherspoons within a mile
Roughly three in ten UK parkruns have a Wetherspoons within a mile of the start. That’s 267 out of the 893 Saturday 5k events currently listed, which is a lot more than I expected when I started looking. Close enough that breakfast is a walk rather than a drive, and close enough that you can leave the car where it is.
These are straight line distances from the start to the pub door, taken from the same data the parkspoons finder uses, so the actual walk will be a bit longer.
The closest in the country
A few of them are ridiculously close.
- Aberystwyth - Yr Hen Orsaf
- Myrtle - The Myrtle Grove, Bingley
- Highbury Fields - The White Swan, Islington
- March - The Hippodrome
- Carlisle Park - The Electrical Wizard, Morpeth
- Shrewsbury - Montgomery’s Tower
- Whiteley - The Round Coppice
- Newtown - The Black Boy, Powys
Aberystwyth is the pick of them. Yr Hen Orsaf is the old station building and the parkrun goes along the seafront, so the walk over barely counts as a walk.
How they split by region
| Region | parkruns with a Spoons within a mile |
|---|---|
| South East | 38 |
| East of England | 30 |
| South West | 30 |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | 27 |
| West Midlands | 27 |
| North West | 27 |
| London | 26 |
| Wales | 18 |
| Scotland | 17 |
| North East | 15 |
| East Midlands | 10 |
| Northern Ireland | 2 |
The South East comes out on top, which makes sense as it’s got plenty of both. Northern Ireland only manages two, but that’s down to there being far fewer Wetherspoons per head over there rather than anything to do with the running.
Worth knowing
Most Wetherspoons open at 8am, so you can get a coffee in before a 9am start if that’s your thing. The opening hours on each pub page come from Wetherspoon’s own listings, so it’s worth checking the page for your pub rather than assuming - a few open later on Sundays and bank holidays move things around.
If your local isn’t on the list it doesn’t mean there’s nothing nearby. Search your postcode on parkspoons and switch the Spoons panel to “on the way home”. A pub four miles from the finish but directly on your route back is often a better shout than one that’s technically closer.
Overall, a lot more parkruns have a Spoons on the doorstep than I thought. You can browse every UK parkrun with its nearest Wetherspoons, or go the other way and browse every Wetherspoons with its closest parkrun.