THE drinks are always on the house for beer-lover Mick Waite - who has turned the hallway of his York home into a pub.

Mick, 65, created a bar in a cupboard under the stairs, installed 1930s-style wood-panelling and decorated the walls with vintage pictures including photo - graphs of his parents’ former pub, The John Bull in Layerthorpe.

Mick, who lives in south-west York, began the work 15 years ago and now spends his evenings propping up his own bar, sometimes even with cask ales bought from local breweries.

His house-pub is called The Midnight Bell, and when two of his friends founded Leeds Brewery, they paid tribute by using the same name for their flagship pub in Holbeck, Leeds.

Mick said: “I have either knocked £20,000 off the value of the house or, if I sell it to a real ale fan, added £20,000!

“I have always loved the 1930s and 40s styles and I think I always thought I would like it to look like one of my fa - vourite pubs - The Three Horseshoes at Boroughbridge or the Angel and White Horse in Tadcaster.

“A hall is a little-used part of a house, just there to get you to the stairs, but I spend 90 per cent of my time here now, even when having my cuppa.”

He said he used to have more vintage paraphernalia but sold some of it years ago, including for use on the set of TV’s Heartbeat.”

He said the Midnight Bell name origi - nally came from one of the volumes of 20,000 Streets Under The Sky, an autobiographical trilogy by the writer Patrick Hamilton.