Summer or Winter? The Pubs of the Makeney Loop, Derbyshire.

The scenic village of Duffield and its surrounding area are spoilt for choice with its range of pubs and drinkeries. But when to optimize your drinking experiences? I will take you on a deeply analytical tour of the Makeney Loop pub crawl complete with local cultural knowledge.

White Hart

A restaurant primarily, come bar, come cosy pub if you sit in the right corner, the White Hart is kind of everything. It will do for work dinners, a pub night, and for ‘just one’. Its popularity increased during Covid, when its large beer garden, complete with undercover heated seating, earned loyalty from many. The Hart used to be known as the older adults pub, kind of pricey, but has slowly become one of the more reasonably priced places to drink as its competitors but up their prices (more later). The White Hart has its own car park, meaning it’s customers must visit from drivable distances. This means it hasn’t quite got the vibe of a local (noun) but is the most local (adjective). Therein lies its paradox. The White Hart serves food, but you still need to go up to the bar to order a drink. Like someone visiting from America, it’s almost grasped the concept of a pub but can’t quite forget the vibe of a bar (it serves cocktails). ‘White Hart’ is becoming an increasingly more common suggestion in pub discussions. It also deserves an honourable mention, like most of the pubs on the loop, for the cheap beer you could grab in a milk bottle in lockdown. For £2 a pint, I developed an unsustainable taste for Peroni. Summer definitely, for the garden.

The Bridge

The Bridge is undeniably the most scenic of loop pubs. If you live on the other side of Duffield, you may as well get the bus there, but as you come over the River Derwent, you are greeted by the beer garden and hopefully people waving at you from it. The garden is a patio that overlooks the river and is low enough so that you can’t see any road. It is undoubtedly summer, it catches the sun for a fair bit of the afternoon, and you can sit in the garden all day and all evening, even order food to keep you there. Like the White Hart, serves food, and has a large car park, but it certainly gives off more of a pub vibe, with lower ceilings and more cosy corners. Nonetheless, the restaurant element is throwing, as there is a whole section of eating only. Ignoring this, the garden is summer-pub manifested.

Hollybush

No one has a bad thing to say about The Hollybush, only that they wish it was closer so they could go to it more often. The Hollybush feels like a hug and has remained steady on the pricing. It is the winter pub of all winter pubs and in my extensive research is a favourite. The snugs that circle the bar are filled with classic pub memorabilia; someone famous stood at the bar, horseshoes, beer mats, farm equipment, pint glasses on hooks, old maps of the area, and black and white photos of the pub in years gone by. The Bush has ciders ranging from 4 to 7% and will serve you a game pie to line the stomach. Its only negative is you have to walk there or nominate a driver; the climb from Bridge to Bush is always longer than you think and from central Duffield it's even further. Despite being a pleasant place to walk to and drink in the summer, of course, The Bush is winter through and through with its roaring fires, and a large conservatory to house cold muddy walkers.

King William

King Bill is on the turn just as we start to head back along the A6 into Duffield. Its cosy, and similar to The Bush in many ways, but not as frequented. The bar greets you as you walk in the door, and is made up of one room that creates cosy nooks and crannies with classic pub benches, a low ceiling, and nik-nacs everywhere. It reminds one of a lounge in a farmhouse, and with the log fire to the right of the bar, it would be wrong to name it any other than a winter pub.

The Strutt Arms

The Strutt Arms was boarded up for a while but eventually opened its huge gateway-like doors to reveal an airy, modern-ish bar-pub. Inside, some tables are high with stools (bar?), and some are low with armchairs or sofas. The beer garden is a terrace to the side which unfortunately doesn’t take advantage of the fact Strutt sits on the bank of the Derwent, but it does, however, always look busy as it catches the evening sun. The Strutt does nicely as a summer or winter pub, with both inside and outside serving as nice places to drink when the drinker sees fit, and it preps you nicely for the walk back into Duffield.

Kings Head

Despite the White Hart giving Kings a run for its money, many would call Kings the local. Known in the past for underage drinking, it was revamped, rebought, and re-branded about 7 years ago. I don’t think it could decide at first what it wanted to be, with a pool table and darts board and reasonably priced drinks, it became the place you would go to bump into people you hadn’t seen in a while from school. It since has attempted to price itself out of this bracket. Despite the slight change in demographic, those that were around before it priced us out still return in the Uni holidays to wince at the price of a round, and to bump into their ex. The cheapest pint goes up 10p around every financial quarter, and the attached restaurant has aged up the demographic. Kings is sophisticated, and clean, with no pub memorabilia, but cosy enough to not be a bar. I guess it's what you would picture for a Duffield pub if you knew Duffield and knew pubs. It has come close to monopolising Christmas Eve as a right of passage come annual reunion, and it gets busy. It works because it is a good layout for a social pub; you can walk around the whole thing, chat, and then loop back around to the bar even when it's busy, but the beer garden is more of a smoking area and again, despite the fence, is right by the A6. It just is Christmas home from Uni: winter through and through.