The Lancashire town that is home to the best pubs in Britain
This year’s National Pub Awards were given out last week, and one part of the country stood out: Clitheroe. It’s a small town in the Ribble Valley that, when you include the countryside within its immediate orbit, provided not only the Pub of the Year, but also the Dining Pub of the Year.
It’s an extraordinary double in a highly competitive arena, but then again, this is a very gastronome-friendly part of Lancashire. There’s abundant farmland for fresh produce and rugged moorland for a scenic backdrop. Leeds and Manchester are within fairly easy reach; from most parts of the country, really, this is a very weekendable place – which is why, I suppose, you can stay overnight at both pubs.
I visited the pair of them, and Clitheroe, the day after the awards had been announced. We started with the Assheton Arms, which won the Dining Pub of the Year award. The countryside on the way was peppered with enticing little pubs, as if the local authority had decided, several hundred years ago, to storm the National Pub Awards with brute numbers alone.
We found the Assheton Arms in Downham, a stony hamlet with no satellite dishes, road markings or phone cables. Even on a weekday lunchtime, it was busy. We sat at a simple wooden table in a nook by the window and tried a few things from the menu: a Malaysian vegetable curry for me, with fat, crunchy beansprouts and a lightly citric yellow sauce; a steak sandwich for our photographer; fish and chips (this is a pub, after all) for her friend.
The staff had found out about the award only yesterday. “We’re just really proud,” said Rob Broadbent, the manager, who joined the team three months ago. Explaining the pub’s appeal, he cited the chocolate-box village, the relative ease with which people can get here, and the peaceful vistas through the window. It’s usually a nice view, he says, although: “Sometimes it looks like Mordor.”
It was a hilly half-hour drive to the Inn at Whitewell, which had won the Pub of the Year award. Whitewell is another handsome hamlet consisting of a church, sternly weatherproof stone houses, a showroom’s-worth of four-wheel drives, and a famous pub. This one was the first stop made by Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in The Trip, and it has flagstone floors, walls adorned with hunting scenes, a grandfather clock, an open fire, and finally, visible from the main dining room, the froth and fury of the River Hodder, just a few yards below.
I could easily have stayed for more than one drink. I could easily have set up a redirection of my post to that dining room, actually, and settled in for a few restful years of picturesque bibulousness. Alas, our day trip to Clitheroe required one more stop, a day trip to Clitheroe, so off we went.
Clitheroe is a small, fairly well-off town with a mouldering Norman keep at its centre and a clutch of characterful independent shops. We’d missed the food festival, which took place last month, and our trip hadn’t fallen on one of the three market days a week (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday), but if you find yourself in such an iniquitous situation, there are yet more pubs to visit. Within 10 miles of Clitheroe, there are four pubs on the most recent Top 50 Gastropubs list: the Assheton Arms and the Inn at Whitewell are two of them, the others being Freemasons at Wiswell and the Parkers Arms.
Within that kind of driving radius, there are even a couple of attractions that are not pubs, though pubs remain the area’s principal attraction. Two final pieces of advice, then, for those who’d like to visit Clitheroe. One: take a car. Two: don’t be the designated driver.
The castle
Clitheroe Castle is a rather doleful Norman keep, but its hilltop offers a wonderful view. You might well spend more time in Clitheroe Castle Museum, which is currently showing work by local artists.
The pinnacle
Just down the hill from the castle, you’ll find “the Pinnacle”. This strange, ornate quasi-tower once sat on top of the Palace of Westminster. It was taken down during a 19th-century rebuilding project and given to Clitheroe, which means any old dog-walker can see a bit of Parliament that was supposed to be for God’s eyes only.
The school
Stonyhurst, the forbidding-looking Jesuit school founded in the 17th century, is five miles from Clitheroe. Check its website for guided tours of its campus. The newly opened Old Chapel Museum, which the school says is the oldest museum collection in the English-speaking world, includes an example of Shakespeare’s First Folio.
The boar park
Bowland Wild Boar Park, which, as well as boars, has emus, ostriches, petting-friendly animals and plenty of others, awakens after a refurb today. It’s three miles from the Inn at Whitewell – a wild boar is always an upgrade on a pub bore.
The historic house
Browsholme Hall, an Elizabethan house of red sandstone, is nearish to Clitheroe. It’s privately owned, but you can visit the hall, its woodland and its lakes – as long as you arrive on a Wednesday.
The Area of Natural Beauty
The Ribble Valley overlaps the Forest of Bowland, which is not much of a forest but offers rustic moorland and fells nevertheless.
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