The Sugar Loaf started life as Thomas Goward’s grocery shop, where he would blend tea, ground coffee and spices and cut sugar from a sugar loaf for his customers, hence the name. For a century from 1810 the shop traded, and the two floors above the pub housed Goward’s large household; his wife and three daughters, three shop workers and two servants.

The building has a wonderfully traditional look from the outside, with brown signage that makes it tricky for unseasoned travellers to recognise this as a Wetherspoon pub. The floors above the pub, where the grocer and his family once lived, sports eight pleasingly symmetrical 19th century windows across two floors. The building you can see from the street hides the true size of the pub, which now stretches back into the warehouse that was once used by Goward to prepare the produce for his shop.

The pub is long and thin, stretching far back into the warehouse which retains its industrial vaulted ceiling and skylights. The bar is grand, placed centrally in the pub and elegantly crafted from dark wood to maintain the traditional feel throughout.

Seating is ample, with a row of large, comfortable enclosed booths opposite the bar and alongside the dark wood features, the interior is decorated in neutral colours, giving it a pleasant warmth.

To the rear is a beer garden, enclosed by the old streets of Market Harborough but interestingly detatched from the pub, having to cross a small service road to reach it.

The toilets, located downstairs, were quite small but nothing special, taking the older Spoons design of faux marble worktops and somewhat dated white tiles.

Ratings (out of 5)

We both rate the pub based on three criteria; the building, the interior and the toilets. These scores are averaged out to give the pub its overall rating. You can read more about the rating system here.

Building: 3.0 & 2.5
Interior: 3.0 & 3.0
Toilets: 2.0 & 2.0

Overall: 2.58/5