THE last place you'd expect to find a menagerie of farm animals is down at your local watering hole.

But, since it opened in August last year, the converted car park small holding at The Highwayman pub on Manchester Road is proving something of a hit with children and adults alike.

With a Kume Kume pig called Bess, two pygmy goats called Bonnie and Clyde plus ducks, hens, rabbits, chipmunks and degus (like guinea pigs) the pub is pulling in the crowds for an altogether different reason.

Locals even supply the animals with leftover vegetable peel and owner Michelle Aspinall says the idea behind the farmyard was to create a real family pub and to stand out from the crowd.

She said: "We called the goats Bonnie and Clyde and the pig Bess because we wanted to stick with the highwayman theme. It's not only the kids who love to visit the animals - some grown ups are taken with them as well and are always dropping by with food for them.

"The animals will live out their natural lives here - to us they're pets."