Guide to historic town pub crawl
Normally over the summer, a group of volunteers would be running Heritage Tours out of Ashbourne Visitor centre. They are free and the guides are all itching to do them again. We thought you might enjoy some snippets from our tours. Up first is LIZZY BUTTERFIELD. She is fascinated by the history of the town’s pubs
I ALWAYS like to incorporate little bits about local pubs on my tours, both existing and past.
During Georgian times Ashbourne was a thriving town because it was a regular coaching stop for many, as it acted as a “crossroads” with four different routes converging on the town.
At its peak, Ashbourne had 38 pubs, which we know thanks to a census helpfully done in 1577.
Many of the pubs in the town have a lot of history to them. The White Lion in Buxton Road, which later became Whites restaurant and is now residential housing, was frequented by highwaymen who would listen to travellers’ plans and use this information to plot their robberies.
Moving down to the Market Place the town hall is on the site of a former pub, The Talbot. This was actually visited by Isaac Walton with his friend Charles Cotton, and gets a mention in the Compleat Angler.
Moving further down the road, we have the Queen’s Vaults which, of course in more recent history, many of us will remember as The Ashbourne News Telegraph offices.
This originally was called the Barley Mow. It changed its name to The Queen’s Vaults for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, and the name has now been resurrected by the current landlords.
Just across the road you can see The Smith’s Tavern. This was called the Wine Vaults, unsurprisingly due to the beverages that they served.
In more recent history, this pub gets quite a mention in Bill Bryson’s book The Road to Little Dribbling, although not entirely complimentary.
The previous landlord was something of a character, and not impressed by Bryson’s comments about a Ringwood lager – the extract is up on the wall in the pub - and I can recommend the book on a personal note. Although I would not recommend reading it in a public place if, like me, you are a “giggler” as you end up looking like a bit of a lunatic!
Along Church Street is a beautiful building, which used to be the White Hart pub. In Georgian times this was frequented by gentlemen who used to hold cock fights there, and that was a gentleman’s sport.
We are very fortunate as a town to have so many pubs still in existence, and I usually make several recommendations of places to try to people who attend my tours but, of course, this is a trifle pointless at the moment given the lockdown.
However, if you get the chance to take a walk around town on your daily exercise then I would recommend looking at the pub buildings as many of them have lovely architecture, particularly The George and Dragon on the Market Place.
There is one pub that I have quite deliberately omitted to mention, which may strike some of you as odd, and that is, of course, The Green Man.
This is because one of our other tour guides will be doing a feature just on that pub as it has so much history.
I hope you’ve enjoyed a brief tour of some of the historic pubs of Ashbourne, and perhaps one day you will be able to join us for one of the real tours.