Free house & dining, Helmsley, North Yorkshire
The Wheatsheaf
The Wheatsheaf has stood on Helmsley’s market square since 1786. Cracking ales, a roast people plan their Sundays around, and a function room that should have been booked solid. It wasn’t — because nobody could find it.
Free House · Est. 1786 · Helmsley
Sunday lunch, by the fire.
A proper Yorkshire free house — open fires, real ales, and a roast worth the drive. Rooms upstairs for those who’d rather not.
This week’s table
The Long Room
Weddings, wakes and birthdays for up to eighty, with a private bar and a view of the moors. Enquire and we’ll hold a date.
Enquire about the roomWhat’s on
THE WHEATSHEAF
Market Place, Helmsley YO62 · 01439 000 000
Mon–Thu 12–11 · Fri–Sat 12–late · Sun 12–10
The delivered site — scroll to explore
The brief
The old site was a single dated page with a PDF menu and no way to book anything. The function room — by far the highest-margin part of the business — wasn’t even mentioned. Trade depended entirely on passing footfall and regulars, leaving the quiet months very quiet indeed.
Our approach
- ✦Spent an evening in the snug learning how the pub actually earns: roasts, rooms, and that function space.
- ✦Built the site around what people come for, not around a generic “pub website” template.
- ✦Made the function room a destination of its own, with a simple enquiry form a stressed bride could use on her phone.
- ✦Directed a half-day’s photography so the food looks as good on screen as it does on the plate.
What we built
- A warm, characterful homepage that feels like the pub
- A live table-booking integration and a function-room enquiry flow
- An easily-updated menu the kitchen changes themselves
- Local SEO so “Sunday lunch Helmsley” finds them first
The results
×5
function-room bookings a month
+38%
midweek covers, first quarter
#1
on Google for “Sunday lunch Helmsley”
“A wedding party from forty miles away booked the function room within the week. The lads at the bar take the mick about how posh it looks. The till doesn’t.”