Raising A Glass To The Pubs Of The Peak District

Andrew McCloy explores the country inns offering a wonderful blend of history and hospitality

- Andrew McCloy

There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced, as by a good tavern or inn... So said Dr Samuel Johnson, the 18th century essayist born in Lichfield and a frequent visitor to Derbyshire’s many fine public houses.

From grand coaching hotels to humble roadside cottages, bustling town centre taverns to the village inn, nowhere is the county’s rich variety of pubs more evident today than in the Peak District. Bound up in these intriguing, handsome and sometimes quirky places are stories every bit as tasty as the stuff that foams out of their pumps.

Take, for instance, the Barley Mow at Kirk Ireton, south of Wirksworth, a striking 300-yearold listed building whose sense of timeliness is due to a succession of long-serving publicans who liked to keep things just the way they were. A previous landlady spent her entire life at the pub, all 90 years of it, and in 1971 resisted decimalisation by insisting that customers pay in ‘old money’ and using a biscuit tin for a cash till. Even until quite recently the barrels of beer were racked behind the bar in the traditional fashion.