April 2026. Monsal Head. The Peak District.
Mrs RM had been reminding me how little of the Peak District we’d actually done since moving to Sheffield (hardly any new GBG pubs), so I gave her a mystery trip into the heart of the Peak last Thursday.
15 miles south-west of Sheffield, Monsal Dale in the White Peak appears from nowhere,
with that money shot view of the disused rail line that once enraged Ruskin;
“every fool in Buxton can be in Bakewell in half an hour, and every fool in Bakewell at Buxton; which you think a lucrative process of exchange – you Fools everywhere“
Now it’s part of the Monsal Trail, where Helly-Hansen-sunglass-on-head man can commune with nature on an exerting (but flat) 8.5 mile walk.
Or, if you’re wearing inappropriate footwear, you can just get a 99 from Frederick’s Ices,
admire the view,
and say “Oooh, is that a pub ?“.
Actually, it’s two (2) pubs, Mrs RM, the old hotel and the Stable Bar that was in the GBG last time we visited two decades ago.
We enter the stables to stern warning,
and Kings Of Leon. I prefer the stern warning.
Too many beers, you might think, but a quick sip of Mrs RM’s Jaipur confirmed it;
an NBSS 4 pint, cool and crisp, better than at their Bakewell factory down the hill..
As Ian “Mr Bass” Thurman once noted, where (oh where) are the GBG entries in this vast swathe of our National Park ? Just these two Guide pubs in Bakewell between Matlock and Hope Valley.
Nothing in large villages like Tideswell and Hathersage and Youlgr(e)ave, and one glaring ommission just north of Monsal.
But why ?
retiredmartin 