May 2025. Hebden Bridge.
£13.35 your off-peak return from Sheffield to Hebden Bridge, so you’re going to want to walk 13,350 steps, consume 1,335 calories, and drink NBSS 13.35 worth of beer, I guess ?
It’s a glorious town, just a bit overwhelmed with day-trippers, the Matlock Bath or Bewdley of the North.
Plenty of pubs around the market place to mop up the tourists, and my main target was a couple of miles north.
I could have caught the Bronte bus, but walking in 25 degrees heat up a 1 in 10 hill (in a jacket I stupidly forgot to pack away in my man bag) is ideal for pre-emptively wearing off those 1,335 calories, and you get to see the best views across to Hardcastle Crags.
Just before COVID I drove three (3) fellow tickers into the hills above Hebden in a straining Aygo to tick the wonderful Hare & Hounds. In 2025 a similar walk to the Robin Hood was rather less stressful, though the footpath runs out just when you want it most.
Pecket Well feels like a hamlet, the car park could hold the village, which is very coy about its actual population so I’ll guess 313. They all live on this pretty street;
On the way up Google Maps tells me the Robin Hood is “as busy as it gets“; arriving at a quarter to three the lunch trade had eased, leaving a choice of “Yorkshire dining pub” seating.
It’s a professional but friendly place,
exemplified by the young lady who gets my glass of water (“You need that first“) before pulling the pint of Landlord.
It’s a quality TT Landlord, that most ubiquitous but inconsistent of pints, a cool and chewy NBSS 3.5/4.
Where has it been hiding, in plain sight ?
Top welcome, top soundtrack (“Golden Slumbers” and Michael Jackson), top beer mat collection in the Gents.
Some classics on that board,
though the Babycham exhibit may present some difficulties in 2025.
Everyone knows a Girl’s Survival Guide is the GBG and a bar of Dairy Milk.
retiredmartin 
Is a northern thirst different than a southern thirst? East than west?
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…left than right ?
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Webster’s Pennine Bitter later rebranded as Webster’s Yorkshire Bitter. The original TV adverts just had Fred Truman breathing fire as he drank the beer. After the rebranding it was Fred and Ray Illingworth plus shire horses.
Robin Hood Inn at Pecket Well also one of my favourites.
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I have many of those beermats,including the Freddie Trueman one & a whole collection of Babycham ones.I have been intending to display them somehow for the last 45 years .Tried to pass them on to may lad but he refused my kind offer but also told me not to get rid of them.I occasionally get a few out to use -good conversation starters ! As I remember it Hebden Bridge wasn’t a tourist hotspot -how times change !
Pauline
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Children are such a disappointment when they don’t take the tat you’ve saved for them off your hands !
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Fiery Fred Truman, eh. I’m sure he must have bowled quite a few maidens over in his time. 😄
Freudian slip, alert!!
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Not sure that comment will pass my woke filter, Paul ;-0
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It’s no surprise really that the one of those beermats that remained unchanged for forty years is Humphrey’s.
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Loved this pub too, excellent young staff on a busy night when I went. And thanks for reminding me of the trip to Wandsworth, are you sure we didn’t get out and push? Pubmeister
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Pushing it would have been quicker !
At least 3 different location that pub could have been under, Wandsworth, Chiserley, Hebden Bridge.
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Wandsworth was a curious spellcheck!
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Would have been interesting finding a hill in Wandsworth!
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