The Sandpiper is a classic country pub in the diminutive but charming little market town of Leyburn. The dining room is very no-nonsense, just serried ranks of wooden tables at which two, four or six people sit quietly devouring dinner. Because the food is jolly good. I picked the grilled goat cheese salad to start, …
There’s a lovely walk you can do from Hutton-le-Hole via Spaunton to Lastingham and then back along the edge of the moor, it’s only four miles or a couple of hours and all three villages are lovely. We came back to Lastingham in the evening for dinner at The Blacksmith’s Arms, an atmospheric little inn …
Got a few reviews in a bunch, from a week touring parts of the north of England. As usual we found a whole lot of warm, hospitable and brilliant places to stay and eat and explore. The Fox & Hounds in Sinnington was our first stop. The village is tiny, tucked up at the foot …
The perils of building a pub lunch into a proper walk in the country. By “proper” I mean a 16km hike, not a hour’s stroll. And the perils are clear: not eating enough beforehand (worried about not having an appetite) and so getting starving hungry on the walk, making the last hill before the pub …
Coming back from a long enough trip abroad (this time, a six week jaunt around northern Spain) gives you the chance to look at what’s back home with a somewhat fresh gaze. At least, if you try hard enough. The English pub really is perhaps the most distinctive piece of our human landscape, very different …