Hartington, famous for its eponymous Hartington Stilton, used to have quite a collection of inns, taverns and beerhouses around its heart, the market place. As I write this, only one is open: the Charles Cotton.
Sitting below the church is Dale House. This was the Bull's Head Inn of old. It is listed as such in the 1841 census and in trade directories up to 1849. It probably ceased trading as an inn around then as there's no reference to it as such in the 1851 census or in any later guides.
Head a hundred yards towards the village centre and you come to the Village Stores. Built in 1836 as a general store it used to be home to a beerhouse in a rear room – the Volunteer Arms. Two years after being built gunpowder, from a leaking barrel, caused an explosion which removed the roof and killed all the occupants. It was obviously put back together as this picture from the 1890s shows.
The sign reads:-
Volunteer Arms Mark Greatbach Licenced to Sell by Bottle ALE and PORTER To be Drunk On The Premises
Mark Greatbach was a local miller and son-in-law of Francis and Maria Belfield who ran the place from at least 1871 until Maria's death in 1901. I haven't found any reference to it trading after that, so perhaps the beerhouse died with Maria. Other than the acquisition of a few tie bars the building doesn't appear to have altered much in the intervening hundred years or so.
Almost opposite the village stores is Hall Bank. Here the were a couple of hostelries, the Snake and Diamond and the adjacent Red Lion. Of the former I don't believe there is any trace but there is a big clue to the whereabouts of the latter.
The Red Lion Inn was operating in the 18th century and is listed in the 1828 Pigot's Directory as having Anthony Gould as the innkeeper. More recently it was run by the Harrison family for over seventy years. William Harrison was landlord from at least as early as 1871, followed by his unmarried daughter Emma and then his granddaughter Elizabeth, who was also unmarried and landlady until at least 1941. Going back a bit further, William's father-in-law, George Roose, was the innkeeper in the 1840s. The pub closed in 1951 and is now a pair of (holiday?) cottages.
The last mention in this post goes to the Devonshire Arms. Closed and fenced off with work going on inside. Hopefully this is just a bit of renovation and not a permanent closure/conversion.
