retiredmartin

July 2026. Sawley. Derbyshire.

A fair few pubs for the 6,629 good folk of Sawley, most of them in the Good Beer this century.

I’d started at the smart allrounder and GBG perennial White Lion, by which time the breakaway group had already declared the Ay Up at the similar Harrington Arms “not drinking well”.

When it was drinking well, back in 2010, we’d left our two lads on their own to watch England battle to a nil-nil draw against Algeria, the sort of child abandonment that MumsNet thrives on. A 9 year old Matt sagely declared the Harrington’s lunch “classic pub food, with a twist“. It’s funny what things your children say that stick in your mind; I’ve no idea what exams he did.

I remembered the Nag’s Head; or I thought I did, I may have got it confused with the Railway round the corner which is also a Pedigree and cob place.

More joy for fans of AI produced pub posters, and I appreciate that may be a pool with me in it.

I also acknowledge that the Nag’s Head is of a type not always embraced by CAMRA members,

something do with promoting independent beers I guess.

Fans of Uttoxeter and Tutbury and Atherstone will feel at home here,

and the suphorous snatch of that first sip of Pedi (VERY GOOD) was as good as Stafford Paul (in here at 10:15) had promised.

Oh look, the main group of pub surveyors on their way to the Trent.

Will and Richard dashed off to the Railway; I had more cerebral aims.