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.