August 2025. Sherburn-in-Elmet.
Leon was giving me the Deluxe Curated Tour of Sherburn, even though he doesn’t actually live there or use the pubs regularly. Sherburn is a town of 6,657 souls, who all seemed cheerful enough despite the absence of regular trains to Sheffield. Or a Wetherspoons.
It has a Sam Smiths pub, though, and therefore feels a bit like Oughtibridge or Grenoside, the rural villages a couple of miles north of me.
Actually, this little corner of Yorkshire between York, Leeds and Selby is one of the Great UK GBG Deserts.
Nothing in Tadcaster, and Humphrey’s wonderful estate of pubs in villages like Saxon has evaded the Guide by closing, ripping out the handpump or other crimes.
Now, I can’t take any photos inside the Red Bear.
BUT….the Red Bear can (see here).
Genuinely astonishing, as good as any National Trust property. If they charged a fiver you’d willingly pay it to gawp. The best comparison I can make is with the similarly gorgeous in Robert Raikes House Gloucester.
There’s a decent menu, but no-one eating today (what’s the point when you can’t take a photo of your food for Instagram), and the cask OBB isn’t on tomorrow, so the stout it is, poured by a barmaid who likes my Alix Page T-shirt and seems much too cheery to be working for Sam Smiths.
What a gem. Go see it for yourself.
retiredmartin 