Our pub today is The Crispin at Great Longstone.
It made for an excellent lunchtime stop on our walk although we have to admit that initially we’d plumped for it due to its unusual name.
On our arrival we noticed the pub sign showed an atmospheric picture of a shoe maker.
Duly intrigued we carried out a little research to discover that the pub is actually named after Saint Crispin, the patron saint of Cobblers no less!
Well, every day’s a school day as they say.
We knew (from our S is for Stoney Middleton walk) that Stoney and Eyam became important shoe making centres around the 18th century but we hadn’t realised that Great Longstone was also home to a fair number of cobblers back then, along with frame knitters and stockingers.
In tandem with local quarrying and the numerous lead mines on nearby Longstone Edge and Moor, these cottage industries boomed in the village. And , once you start to a think about it, it’s not so hard to imagine a much noisier and less twee Great Longstone busily servicing the need for strong miners’ and quarry workers’ boots back in the days of the area’s industrial past.
Apparently the oldest part of the pub dates back to these days too (although various extensions and additions have been made since) and it is itself a listed building for its regional significance.
Inside the pub, it’s absolutely amazing with a huge collection of jugs and horse brasses
adorning every beam above our heads, William Morris design wallpaper, open fire places, grandfather clocks,
commemorative plates, bells, barrels and even a nod to the Saint himself.
You could spend hours in here and still not have noticed everything on display.
Like The Anchor, this is a Robinsons pub so I automatically ordered a Unicorn bitter only to notice, a moment too late, that there was a Crispin bitter on sale next to it.
Apparently this is brewed by Robinsons especially for the pub, allowing them to use their own name on it. It looked well worth further investigation so we’ll just have to come again and give it a try next time.
As readers of our peakwalksatoz.com blog will know, besides beer and wine we are also fond of proper pots of tea. Well, we’re happy to report that The Crispin can also do a good job in this department…. a real bonus as we’d unfortunately arrived in a freezing cold deluge of rain and needed a hot drink to warm ourselves up.
The menus are extensive ranging from snacks to full meals, the portions were very generous and the prices seemed very reasonable and good value.
We thoroughly enjoyed our cheese and tomato sandwich and fish goujon cob, and I know we’re not very far through the alphabet yet, but we both think this is the best pub we’ve been to so far!
We didn’t seem to be alone in this opinion as the pub was very busy with a mixture of holiday makers, locals and dog walkers and people who looked like they’d driven out here especially for the food, rather than just popped in as an ad hoc shelter from the rain.
And as we noticed on our departure ( with the sun shining once again) there’s a lovely beer garden at side.
Today’s Walk & Transport Information
Today we started walking from Hathersage Railway Station ( alternatively we could have caught the 272)
Coming home we caught the 65 from Calver Sough crossroads.
Our walk took us out of Hathersage, past The Plough and then up the lane towards Leam. We struck across Eyam Moor before joining the road on the bend near Sir William Hill, then along past Mompesson’s Well, down through Eyam and out past the Lydgate Graves to Stoney Middleton. From here we walked along Coombs Dale and the Longstone Edge Road to our pub of the day, The Crispin in Great Longstone.
After lunch we headed for Rowland and then over the hill to Calver Sough.
We thoroughly enjoyed this walk which provided a great variety of Peak District features, gritstone moorland, limestone dales, interesting villages and amazing views.
Use the link below to access the full route with details of elevation and distance. Download the free Footpath app in order to follow the route showing your location at all times for a hassle free walk. Or, for old school navigators, go prepared with an OS Dark Peak & Light Peak leisure map as you will need to use them both.
https://footpathapp.com/routes/CDA686ED-52FD-40E8-B393-A467A53ADF4E?units=metric
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