The Highwayman, the new Ribble Valley Inns pub
Another pub in Haworth and Bancroft's stable looks sure to stand out and deliver
While much noise has been made about Gordon Ramsay's new pub opening in East London, across the country another pub serving decent food that doesn't want to be tarred with the gastropub brush has quietly opened. The Highwayman, just inside the boundaries of Lancashire and close to the counties of Cumbria and Yorkshire, is the second pub from Northcote Manor owners Nigel Haworth and Craig Bancroft under the Ribble Valley Inns banner.
When the fi rst – the Three Fishes in Mitton – opened in September 2004 customers queued around the block.
Although there are no queues on the opening day at the Highwayman, the locals must be thrilled to have them there. The building dates back to the nineteenth century, and has been The Highwayman since the 1940s but has been closed for the past few years. Haworth and Bancroft have spent £1.2m restoring and extending the building on a lease with Thwaites' brewery.
Of that, £170,000 was spent on the kitchen alone.
Although not all the chairs and furniture match, the Highwayman's style is not the trying-too-hard clash of styles which characterises so many gastropubs. Instead it looks like, well a country pub, with quite a few tables for eating (120 covers in all) but no dedicated restaurant area. A 40-cover veranda (uncovered and hence likely to be popular with smokers come July 1) will open in the next couple of weeks. On the walls hang photographs of the pub's produce suppliers linking up with a map on the back of the menu showing you where to fi nd, for example, Ruth and Graham Kirkham of Mrs Kirkham's Lancashire Cheese in Goosnargh or Richard Park's Low Sizergh Barn in Sizergh.
The fi rst lunchtime sees a blackboard sign proclaiming "we're open" to passing cars and several tables full of curious locals and old faithfuls from the Three Fishes checking out how the new pub measures up. For busy times, there's a reservations board. Service is informal with food orders taken at the bar and the same dishes served at both services. Head Chef Michael Ward earned his spurs at the owner's Northcote Manor. To start with there's Peter Gott's Potted Wild Boar, Slow Cooked Onions, Pork Dripping on Sourdough Toast and Warm Flookburgh Shrimps, Blade Mace Butter, Toasted Muffi n, moving onto the likes of Heather Reared Bowland Lamb Lancashire Hotpot, Pickled Red Cabbage and Sandham's Organic Creamy Lancashire Cheese and Onion Pie, Short Crust Pastry, Sour Cream Jackets, Banks Tomato Salad and Lancashire Curd Tart with organic Lemon Cream or Cartmel Sticky Toffee Puddings for after. A Tricounties Cheeseboard points up the pub's location while the famous Grasmere gingerbread comes with all teas and coffee.
There's also, as you'd expect with the Three Fishes picking up a CAMRA award for best pub food for kids just months after opening, a decent kids' menu.
To drink, on draught, there's Thwaite's Original and Wainwright as seasonal guest beer for the next two months. Even the bottled water is Cumbrian brand Willow Water.
Although it took Haworth and Bancroft 18 months to fi nd this site, Haworth is still keen to eventually have a total of fi ve pubs in the portfolio spread between Lancashire and neighbouring counties. If he can deliver the standards already in place at The Three Fishes and promised by The Highwayman, the locals will no doubt be willing to wait.
Where? | The Highwayman, Burrow, Kirkby Lonsdale, LA6 2RJ.
01524 273338 Highwaymaninn.co.uk
