CityLife

Pub of the week: The Pack Horse Inn

Fantastic puddings and spectacular views in New Mills

The Pack Horse Inn
New Mills, High Peak
October 2009

ON a holiday in the Cotswolds this summer, I visited the home of The Pudding Club of Great Britain, a hotel where fans of all things sticky and sweet gather to gorge on England’s greatest afters. I recommend it.

But if you can’t stomach that kind of journey for your pudding fix, head to The Pack Horse, high on a hill above New Mills.

They serve some of the best traditional puds I’ve had in ages.

And it is in a great location, too, overlooking Kinder Scout, so you can work up an appetite – or work off any guilt – with a decent leg stretch.

Immaculately kept

We sampled their bread and butter pudding – soft and light with great, fat sultanas and a twist of orange peel (£3.95). There was apple crumble (£3.95) too – not overly sweet and with a sea of silky custard.

But the best was the sticky toffee pudding with ice cream, which made your eyelids flutter and would have driven anyone from that dish’s spiritual home of Cartmel to pick up the phone to the trades descriptions people.

But desserts are not the only things of merit in this pretty and immaculately kept pub.

The views are spectacular, the beer garden beautifully tended with flowers, heather and even a waterfall, and there are good beers, too.

Classic

They had one of my favourites – the dry, clear Arizona from Phoenix, of Heywood – and also a couple of unusual ones.

There was Auld Hemp, from north east micro High House Farm and Bavarian Gold, from Saltaire Brewery.

The pub attracts a diverse crowd of walkers, families, locals and farmers (there was a beautiful collie in a Land Rover in the car park with a winning rosette round its neck) and staff are down-to-earth and friendly.

The food is traditional, unadventurous even. You can get a good roast dinner (£8.95), though our Yorkshires were woefully overdone, and the prawn cocktail on the menu hasn’t just come back into fashion.

But at least that all means that you can enjoy some classic British puds.