THE founder of a pub chain made a visit to his Barrow boozer.

Tim Martin, founder and chair of Wetherspoons, is on a tour of the North-West and visited the Furness Railway along the way.

Within three days of the tour he had already visited twelve Wetherspoon pubs.

Mr Martin said he "started at Preston on Wednesday, stayed in our pub in Barrow-in-Furness on Wednesday night, stayed in Carlisle on Thursday night," and by Friday he was at The Henry Bessemer in Workington.

Speaking about his Workington visit, he said: "I had breakfasts there, spoke to all the staff on duty, made notes of their comments and agreed with their strongest suggestion - try and get a beer garden somehow.

"We’ve added beer gardens at many pubs including recently at Barrow, a while back at the William Rufus and soon , hopefully, at Whitehaven."

Barrow's new beer garden was opened in August.