The inn that sheltered shepherds – and their sheep!

From his latest book, Peak District Pubs: a pint-sized social history, Andrew McCloy looks at how inns have been at the very heart of communities for centuries.

OVER the centuries, pubs and inns have played a central role in the social fabric of rural communities, in particular, which is why their current predicament is so concerning. The village pub or moorland inn was where farmers and shepherds met, and nowhere is this more evident over the years than at the Fox House Inn, high on the moors above Hathersage. It began life in the 1770s as a two-roomed shepherd’s cottage, and is not actually named after the animal, as most would suspect, but almost certainly after George Fox of Callow Farm, near Hathersage, who built the place…