James Rowe: I’m sure I’m not alone in loving that feeling of stepping inside a countryside pub for a refreshing drink and a warming meal. But there’s one county that tops the lot for the best destinations.
Hello and welcome to Which? Shorts, your free weekly insight into Which? magazine, as well as our Money, Tech, Travel, and Gardening titles. Today I’m bringing you a piece that Oliver Smith wrote for the March–April issue of Which? Travel magazine that highlighted one county’s breathtaking scenery and its pubs that you should make a beeline for. Here is Oliver’s piece, adapted for the podcast this week, read by me, James Rowe.
The Peak District is the most peculiar National Park. Unlike many of its comrades, it doesn’t lie on some extremity of the country, but rather slap bang in the bustling centre of England. Millions make day trips to see its stately homes and to scale its fells – to find brief sanctuary from the stresses of urban life. Within its sanctuary lie still more sanctuaries: its pubs.
The Derbyshire Dales supposedly has the highest density of them in Britain, and here you can find every species of public house: from village pubs, to gastro pubs, to ancient coaching inns. Approaching the Peak District from the east, the National Park reveals itself with a theatrical flourish. Beyond Chesterfield, signs of civilisation thin out as the A619 scales a lonely moorland. Heather and mud occupy bleak horizons. Then, in a sudden plot twist, the road nosedives into a lush green valley, with the River Derwent sparkling below.
Almost the first house you come across is the grandest in England. Indeed, Chatsworth House is a Baroque leviathan with some 120 rooms, lording over a swathe of parkland beside the Derwent. For five centuries, it has been the home of the same Cavendish family. It was long a centre of cultural and political gravity, but now it despatches tea towels, scented candles, and souvenir chutneys, for Chatsworth is both a tourist attraction and a luxury lifestyle brand.
There is one other thing that the Chatsworth empire does rather well, and that’s its pubs. The Beeley Inn is a pub of butterscotch-hued stone just south of the great house itself, providing hostelry for visitors of the estate since the 18th century. Dickens stayed here, and it is rumoured that King Edward VII met his mistress, Alice Keppel, under its roof. Their relationship was an unofficial one, although Edward’s great-great-grandson, the current King Charles, made good by marrying Alice’s great-granddaughter, the now Queen Camilla.
It is indeed the perfect pub for an illicit affair – a warren of secret nooks and crannies with crooked timbers around the bar, giving it the aspect of a galleon below deck. Given the choice of the draughty quarters at the big house or the cosy guest rooms in the Beeley Inn, any sane person would certainly go for the latter.
Other pubs to keep in mind include the Ashford Arms in Bakewell. Close to the Headstone Viaduct and the Monsal Trail, the Ashford Arms straddles the territory between pub and country hotel, and looks sprightly after a refit two years ago. The guest rooms are excellent value, adorned with plush fabrics and vintage travel posters. Public areas are tastefully done too – be sure to bag a high-back leather chair by the fireside in the bar. The sublime sticky Bakewell pudding is a highlight too, but there’s a minor grumble for the complicated parking; you do have to register your vehicle reg on a screen. Overnight stays can cost as little as £83 per night.
Or why not try the Barrel Inn in Bretton? It’s the highest pub in Derbyshire and one of the most venerable. Since the 16th century, it’s presided over blustery heights of Bretton Clough, with panoramic views of the Dales. The interiors are resolutely old school with swirling carpet patterns and trinkets mounted around the hearth, although guest rooms are more modern with white-washed walls and big beds. It’s a fine pub with good food, well-kept beer, and a strong spirit.
Little Hucklow is home to the Blind Bull, which is a highlight too. It is in one sense a newcomer to the Peak District pub scene; closed from 2007 to 2020, it reopened after being elevated to its current splendour by new owners during the pandemic. But it also claims to have 12th-century origins. The bar area ministers to locals, but also to foodies who flock from afar. A flavoursome venison and mushroom pudding should make for a memorable meal if you choose to visit. Guest rooms in a restored piggery over the road are handsomely done out with vast beds and bathrooms, and will make you as content as a swine in the proverbial – but expect to pay more than at other Peak pubs, around £165 per night.
Geologically speaking, the Peak District has two distinct cells. Most visitors are bound for the White Peak, made of a mosaic of limestone hills and dipping dales – a happy little hobbiton full of tea rooms and antique shops. Surrounding it in a rough horseshoe shape is the Dark Peak, a glowing country of gritstone edges and wind-whipped summits – a Midland Mordor, mostly devoid of people.
It is into the Dark Peak that England’s most famous path strikes. The Pennine Way stretches 268 miles from Derbyshire to the Scottish border. It is a lunar expanse, wholly devoid of the estates and country houses that define the White Peak, although the crags that line Dark Peak escarpments sometimes resemble castles in their outlines, towering over peat bogs all around.
Kinder Scout is, of course, a place of seismic significance to the history of the British outdoors. It was here in 1932 that a group of ramblers from Manchester embarked on the Kinder Mass Trespass, protesting for the freedom to stroll the landscapes beyond their city. It is widely thought that their revolutionary act paved the way for the National Park movement of the 1950s. Walkers up and down Britain are indebted to the hobnailed footfalls of that long-ago day.
The village of Edale sits in the shadow of Kinder; the light of its pubs can be seen glinting from the summit all around. The Old Nag’s Head has sooty hearths and flagstone floors, noisy from the clatter of walking poles. The Rambler Inn sits beside the railway line from which Manchester-bound trains screech to a halt. Both serve ale at the moody hue of the Dark Peak peat bogs, and both have long been a spiritual headquarters of the Peak hiking community. Like the Peak District National Park in which they stand, they are places to be refreshed – places devoid of airs and graces – places which, in their very essence, are open to all.
