POSING TABLES IN THE LADYBOWER

October 2023. Ladybower Reservoir, Peak District.

Mrs RM had been getting jealous of other people’s Instagram posts of the Ladybower sinkhole,

so she drove the 5 miles out of Sheffield on Saturday afternoon only to be disappointed by a mere dribble.

But Ladybower still looks autumnally gorgeous.

and while we were there in it seemed rude not to pop in the eponymous pub,

recently reopened after a bewildering period of closure.

Equally bewildering is the owner.

Surely Bateman’s most remote house, as odd as those McMullen fun pubs in Cambridge.

The Ladybower looks a bit “fun pub”,

not at all the Peak District destination dining pub you expect.

With a children’s birthday party to the right and three ladies in full confessional mode, you could be in a Wythenshawe estate pub waiting for that free pint of Doom Bar I promised a quiz winner in 2016.

The sales mix is 50% Madri, 30% Inch’s (though that glass looks like Beavertown),

and the odd Carling. Mrs RM is on the XXXB, an obvious beer for her Untappd check-in, and it’s better than you expect (better than you get in half of Lincolnshire, too).

The 9 year old lad’s birthday soundtrack reveals the steering hand of Mum and Dad. “Message in a bottle”, “Staying Alive”, “All Night Long”. What does a 9 year old listen to, anyway ?

“nice shirt mate” I say to the boy with a Haaland jersey.

“thanks, pal” he says.

The 3 ladies are still moaning about blokes as “You’re So Vain” comes on.

It feels oddly pubby, though those posing tables tell a different story.

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

22 thoughts on “POSING TABLES IN THE LADYBOWER”

  3. “Surely Bateman’s most remote house”.

    There’s two others in Derbyshire, at Bolsover and Bonsall.

    And one in Nottinghamshire, Retford, and four in Yorkshire, Beverley, Doncaster, Rotherham and York ( which I wish I had known about staying a few streets away in June ).

    That’s as well as their three each in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk and thirty-three in Lincolnshire.

    Four dozen in total.

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      1. Martin,

        No, the Cross Keys is “former Batemans pub now operated by Pub People Company.

        Batemans have got the Kings Head at Bonsall and the Sanctuary at Bolsover though.

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      2. The Sanctuary Inn has only just reopened under Batemans. I’m thinking off popping in this Thursday and will get some photos for WhatPub and Pubs Galore while I’m about it.

        Hope the beer’s better than it was in the Cross Keys in Belper – one of the worst pubs in an otherwise very good beer town.

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      1. Last June staying in Humphrey’s Sea Horse I was just a cockstride away from that Bateman’s pub but didn’t know it.

        I had just looked at the Heritage Pubs website when planning my visit.

        I shall have to think of another excuse to stay in York, maybe the fiftieth anniversary of the national AGM early next year

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    3. The KIng’s Head in Bonsall is where a local tried very hard to sell me a chicken coop.

      “He does that with everyone he’s not met before” said his lady companion.

      There was more.

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      2. At the B&B where we stayed, the lady running it asked us what we had for breakfast. So we said what we typically did, but that we decided on the morning.

        “…but what do you have?” she persisted.

        We were also reprimanded for coming back “late” that night.

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      5. This was in June 2009, but I’d stayed at the same B&B under completely different ownership in the 1990s, when it was a complete delight.

        The KIng’s Head was different back then too, and it featured a display of memorial plates from famous strikes, trade unions, and other aspects of the Labour movement. What a marvellous change that was from the coach horns, horse brasses, and other ersatz hunting tat that we get in so many village pubs.

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      6. Yes, and at Atherstone’s Old Swan the Banks’s drinks very well in “the main room is the long bar at the front, plainly furnished, with the primary decoration being a series of plates recalling the long-gone collieries of the area”. 

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