Chesterfield - the lightweight Brampton Mile

In which we tackle half-a-dozen pubs on the western side of Chesterfield.

Completing a mammoth recognised pub crawl was a rite of passage which seemed to emerge in the eigthies, examples being the Mumbles Mile, the Otley Run, and the Didsbury Dozen.  Most with a few less pubs now than they once had.
When I mentioned that we were going to Chesterfield to a couple of people the response was, "Are you going to do the Brampton mile?" 

You'll know that I'm extremely responsible and don't condone pub crawls or drunken shenanigans, so completing the Mile was never on the cards.

But I figured it wouldn't hurt to wander along Chatsworth Road, the western artery from the town centre to Brampton, and visit a few of the pubs.
Starting with a one-mile walk to the micro...

The Real Ale Corner (415 Chatsworth Road, Brampton, Chesterfield, S40 3AD)
This is a delightful little pub which has been in operation since 2009.  It's small in size - five tables in total and we were lucky that someone was just vacating one as we arrived.

 

Small place, BIG beer list.
There were three cask ales: Durham 'Retro Red', Fyne 'Avalanche' and Three Brothers 'Cloudy Judgement'.  Plus a couple of real specials on keg including a To Ǿl collab IPA, a sour from Triple Point and an imperial stout from Sinister Brew.

The Three Brothers cask for me, the 5% hazy American IPA making the trip here from Stockton-on-Tees.
Mrs PropUptheBar - who has been sampling a wealth of quality alcohol-free beers recently threw a curveball by asking for the 10.3% desert stout 'Occasional Irregularity'.  I got her a half instead of the third she wanted, then queried the bill having not twigged this was so strong and the most expensive thing on the keg menu.  Doh!
Strawberry, vanilla and coconut, aged in whisky barrels.  Balls to the price...we should have had a pint!

I gather the Sinister Brewing beers are small batch and this was a good find.  There were also plenty of unusual bottles tempting us from the shelf to the side of our seat in this remarkable micro.

We bypassed the Victoria Inn and Britannia, heading instead to the third pub which lies within a couple of minutes walk of the Real Ale Corner.

The Rose & Crown (104 Old Road, Brampton, Chesterfield, S40 2QT)
This is one of Everard's Project Wiliam pubs, partnering with smaller local breweries to give places a new lease of life.
The Rose & Crown was a 1940's rebuild of an older pub which would have stood right by the roadside where the car park and outdoor seating now is.  It became Brampton Brewery's first pub in 2009 after standing empty for 18-months.
And they've done rather well, picking up regular local CAMRA awards ever since.

It's one of those big 20th century suburban pubs, with a snug to the side of the main door, a central bar area, and two large rooms beyond.

Lots of cask choice.  Two banks of 5 hand pumps mixed the Brampton ales with Tarturus, Left Handed Giant, Thornbridge, Anarchy, Bristol Beer Facory, and Everards.
I know people who wouldn't get any further than this on a pub crawl with beers from those respected breweries on offer.

I tried two of the Brampton beers here: 'Speciale' and 'Brampton Best'.
Both served in near-perfect condition and both tasty concoctions.

Sat outside on a balmy evening, I was fascinated by the car lot across the road - were they all for sale?
How much would it cost to buy the monster truck and would it fit in our parking space at home?

Mrs PropUptheBar is a real spoil-sport sometimes and told me I didn't need and couldn't have one.
So we continued our walk back towards town, reaching the junction where Old Road splits from Chatsworth Road.  Located at this point was the Bampton Tap Room which still has a colourful pub sign and intact frontage, but has been closed since December 2024.

Prior to  being the Tap House, this used to a legendary venue on the mile called The Three Horse Shoes, whose landlord produced an 8% cider called 'Loony Juice', just in case things were going too smoothly and soberly for the pub crawlers.

This central bit of the Brampton Mile was known as the Bermuda Triangle, supposedly as this was the bit where participants were likely to go missing.  A handy bus stop could whisk you back to the centre of Chesterfield if common sense prevailed.

Nearby, we found the Anchor closed at 9pm on a Thursday evening and wondered if that had become another lost pub on the route.
The next place serving cask ale was five minutes walk along the main road and looked great.  

The Tramway Tavern (192 Chatsworth Road, Brampton, Chesterfield, S40 2AT)
This is a cracking mid-terrace pub - enough flower pots and baskets to test the Life After Football good hanging baskets - good beer theory.
Once The New Inn, it is now named after the historic Chesterfield tramway which ran from Brampton through the town centre then north to Whittington Moor until 1927.  The tram depot was located nearby in what's now a business park, where we'd be sitting drinking Brampton beers the next day.

And it was Brampton beer I was drinking in The Tramway, this being the second of their tied houses with the Everards connection.

In addition to the four above, there was a second bank of four hand pulls around the corner of the bar with ales from Everards, Little Critters, Rudgate and Vocation.
'God Bless the Absentee' for me - not just a Paul Simon song, but also an easy-going IPA from the local brewery.

I took this through the front room in this largely open-plan pub, with the local folk musicians taking over the space opposite me.
They made for some good entertainment - I particularly liked their rendition of 'Some Bugger from Yorkshire' and shall investigate it's writer Bernard Wrigley at some point.

I was being sensible.
Then I thought "what would Life After Football do?"
And I tried to visit the Irish bar...

Except Foley's wouldn't have me.
"Sorry mate, we've called last orders."
Fve-past-ten on a Thursday night.

I ended up in the Brampton Social Club, who at least were still open, even though I was doubtful about the name.
Barring a certain Leeds music venue, is any pub which calls itself a 'social club' any good?

Brampton Social Club (126 Chatsworth Road, Brampton, Chesterfield, S40 2AR)
This street corner hostelry was originally opened in 1872 as The Alma and remained a trad pub for many decades tied to a variety of big breweries.  The transformation into something less pub-like came in 2023, as a local company gave it a modern makeover and new name.
It's spacious and open-plan within, with squeeky leather benchs, funky wallpaper, a pop soundtrack and very few punters, as I begin to twig that Thursday isn't the night to go wild.

The Brampton Social Club alledgedly serve cask ale, but if they still had any handpumps they were stealthily hidden.  So I ended up with a Northern Monk 'Faith'.  At which point I decided it was probably time to go home.

We returned to Chatsworth Road the following day, with two more targets: the Brampton brewery tap room (The Bierhuis) which only opens noon-7 on Friday and Saturday; and a second attempt to tick off the current Good Beer Guide entry The Anchor which had been shut the previous day.

First up the Bierhuis, which doesn't have the most glamorous of entrances...

Brampton Bierhuis (Unit 6, Chatsworth Business Park, Chatsworth Road, Brampton, S40 2AR)
Everyone will be flocking to the brewery tap when they get the chance during those limited hours right?
Wrong.  There were only around half-a-dozen folks in the Bierhuis when we visited, all of them drinking Vedett, oddly enough.  I guess the stonkingly hot temperatures may have deterred folks from traveling far for drinks on this occasion.

There were three cask ales available, two of which I hadn't seen anywhere else...

 

The 'Curse of the Bambino' is another American IPA, whilst despite being called 'Impy', the dark ale is a relatively sensible 4.3% ABV.  Both very nice.

The brewery was resurrected in 2007, 52-years after the original Brampton Brewery Co. Ltd closed.  The original was registered in 1897 and had an estate of 142 tied houses.  Nothing is left now of the brewery buildings on Chatsworth Road whichwere demolished in 1984.
I do always like these old breweries that have been brought back to life and didn't encounter a Brampton beer which I didn't enjoy during my couple of days in their home town.
I enjoyed the tap room too: a pleasant enough venue with ample beer paraphenalia trying to disguise the warehouse-like surroundings.

I was sent ahead to check if the Anchor had opened, being as it was unexpectedly shut the previous evening and pub tickers we bumped in to had informed us they'd found it closed early this afternoon.
I've no idea what hours they're keeping - definitely nothing that's displayed anywhere online - but I found the door ajar and a reasonable crowd of folk within.

The Anchor (Factory Street, Brampton, Chesterfield, S40 2FW)
This is an old Chesterfield Brewery Co. pub dating back to 1869.  Being on Factory Street, it once had industrial units as neighbours and terraced houses opposite, but it now stands as pretty much the only building on the road, Aldi car park next door and a big empty space in front of it.
There were five hand pumps on the bar with two in use, dispensing Castle Rock 'Elsie Mo' and Dancing Duck 'Release the Quacken'.  The latter for me, a decent pale ale in reasonable condition.

"It was once a proper real ale pub," a chap at the next table told me.  "Now the youngsters come in and it's not the same."
I'm not sure that's a bad thing, as long as someone is coming in.

I reckon there are another 10 pubs along the Brampton mile route for the completist.  But, with the exception of one or two of them, I really don't think we missed much.

The Buxton Line: Part 2, New Mills and Dove Holes

Day 2 on the train from Buxton, where we departed on the same 11:46 service but paid more than the previous day when we travelled further.  Simplification of train fares seems no closer.
This time we made our way to New Mills Newtown, the second station in the High Peaks hotspot, which is handy for the Swizzels factory, but a bit of trek to the bits of town you really want to be in.

The last time I was in New Mills was on a grey day in January 2022 when I grumbled that I'd wanted to see the Millenium walkway and Torrs with a blue sky background.
We had blue sky this time.  Crikey, a bit of cloud cover would have been nice.

Tucked 40 meters below the town in the Torrs is the old cotton mill which was built in the 1780's by Daniel Stafford.  It's been restored and now contains an events space and preserved trad machinery which visitors can occasionally see in action.  There's also an artisan cheese shop.  Cheese wasn't going to survive the day in the backpack in 30°+ heat, so we headed straight to the beer bar.

Torr Vale Tap (Torr Vale Road, New Mills, SK22 3HS)
This was previously a bar called the Shrub Club, which changed hands in 2023, rebranding itself as a tap house and eatery in a characterful corner of the mill.
There were two handpumps but neither were in action, leaving us with a keg selection from local heavy-hitters Torrside Brewing and an Ossett interloper.

Mrs PropUptheBar was happy enough with the Szechuan pepper enhanced 'Torr Vale Pale' for a second one to be required alarmingly quickly.

I opted for the 'Callista', a 4.5% single hop pale, although I'm not sure this German hop is my favourite.  The 'I'm Spartacus', billed on the pump clip as the "inevitable US IPA" was much more to my taste.

We enjoyed a slow afternoon in New Mills, the hot weather and a tired dog put paid to any walks longer than the stroll up and down the Goyt.
We loitered in the lovely High Lea Park until the clock ticked 4pm and the micro pub would be open. 
Or should be.
There seemed to be someone pottering around inside, but the door was locked, the closed sign was on display, another fella trying the door and walking away.  No-one paid any heed to the oddbods peering in the window. 
The micropub perogative of unbolting the door when you're ready rather than at the advertised time.

Instead, we ambled along the road to the Pride of the Peaks...

The Pride of the Peaks (59 Market Street, New Mills, SK22 4AA)
This pub was built around 1865 at the same time as the New Mills Central station opened and deposited thirsty travellers at this end of Market Street.  Originally it was called The Railway, a name it kept until 1979 when the owners figured it needed a name change to go with a modernisation and refurb.  A Mr Mick Patterson won £10 for coming up with The Peaks, changed some years later to Pride of the Peaks.
I hate to break it to them - there's a lot of lovely pubs in the Peak District and this one isn't the pride of the region.

Timothy Taylor 'Boltmaker' was the sole cask on offer, served with a smile by a lovely lady.
The beer wasn't lovely though - right on the edge of drinkable, but as there was nothing to switch it for I persevered.
We sat on big sofas in the far corner of the L-shaped layout, near the DJ booth which suggested this would be much livelier on a weekend evening.
I didn't rate the decorations....

Let's go back to the Beer Shed and see if they've opened and if they can do wall-mounted decorations any better.
Yes it was and yes they can...

Back in 2022, fans of drinking in small places could enjoy the Rock Mill brewery tap room (now sadly closed) on its unusual opening days of Monday and Tuesday, then patronise the Beer Shed when that opened from Wednesday to Sunday.
So on our previous visit we enjoyed the brewery but missed out on the micro.  It's taken us four years to return to get this tick, so I'm glad they eventually unlocked the door.

Beer Shed (47B Market Street, New Mills, SK22 4AA)
The Beer Shed opened in November 2016 in a former shop unit.  A very narrow shop unit...

There is some more conventional seating in a seperate area on a lower floor, but sticking around the bar you'll find some exceptionally small tables that you wouldn't want to order a pizza to.
There were plenty of interesting options on keg plus three cask ales from Big Trip, Thornbridge and Eyam.

A  Big Trip 'Fozzie' for me - just as pale and murky and hoppy as you knew it would be.

Drinking up at the Beer Shed, we walked back along the road to the New Mills Newtown station and caught the next Buxton-bound train.

Alighting this time in Dove Holes.

Dove Holes, a village with around 1,200 residents, is 3-miles and about 5-minutes on the train from Buxton.  It's the home of the mountain rescue team, one pub, a neotlithic earthwork, a cricket club and not a lot else.

Mrs PropUptheBar skipped the walk to the neolithic earthwork and grabbed a pint and a seat in the pub.
I was going to tell her it was amazing, better than Avebury: but my photograph suggests she didn't miss much

An aerial view would do it more justice.
Known as the Bullring, this late neolithic henge measures around 90 meters in dimension.  It would almost certinaly be better known if it still had a stone circle, but any stones were removed for farming and building many years ago.

Brief antiquarian sight-seeing done, I joined the Mrs PropUptheBar in the village's remaining open pub...

The Queens Hotel (Dove Holes, Buxton SK17 8BJ)
The CAMRA website entry suggested Bass was the regular beer, so it was disappointing to see the hand pump serving an ale from Macclesfield's Storm Brewing.
The landlord confirmed they hadn't had Bass for about a year-and-a-half, being as only one fella drank it.  From what he was telling me, I had the impression that the Storm beers keep better rather than sell better, which isn't great.

Yet I've no complaints about the 3.9% amber 'Desert Storm'.
The Queens is a nice village local with three rooms leading off a central servery: pool table in the front room where all the Wednesday evening custom had gravitated; trad lounge to the side... 

...and a modernised dining room to the left of the bar.
I was rather fond of the signage to the toilets and the opportunity to browse the bookshelf should they prove to be particularly busy.

Shame they didn't have Bass, but I'm still glad we got this pub tick a little off the beaten track.

There's a bit of an evening gap in the trains from Dove Holes, so we kept an eye on the time and ensured we were back on the platform in time for the next service to Buxton.

Once we reached there, we headed for two bars on Cavandish Circus right next door to one another...

Beer & Bean (8 Cavendish Circus, Buxton SK17 6AT)
This is very much the cafe/bar, specialising as much in coffee and waffles as beer.
As far as well-known European brews go though, there are some good'uns on a stylish beer menu, black & white pictures of the building in a lesser state of repair beneath it.

I picked the Belfast-brewed Bullhouse 'Road Trippin'', a fruity 4% extra pale ale.  A refreshing  beer washing down a bite to eat.

Straight out one door and into the next, we bowled into the much more beer-orientated micro pub.

Frog on the Bine (9 Cavendish Circus, Buxton SK17 6AT).
Opened in 2024, seating is set over two floors in this tidy little bar.  Just three or four other customers - obviously regulars - as we approached their early closing hour.

Mrs PropUptthe Bar was delighted to get a new Vault City concoction here and keen to rebuff my insistence that they all tasted the same.
Just the one cask ale available: 'Midas', a golden ale brewed by Sunderland's North Pier brewery.  A decent pint, just a little on the warm side.

I kept glancing at the beer list and that Rivington/Sudden Death 8% double IPA collaboration.

But the local signage knew perfectly well what effect that would have on me...

That proved to be our last port of call in Buxton.

Next up: Chesterfield.
"Why are you going there?" asked the neighbour in our holiday let as we packed the car.
Because they've got a LOT of pubs.