Trifter

Arkengathdale is the most northern of the Yorkshire Dales. It is a landscape that has been sculptured for those who enjoy walking, horse riding and other country pursuits. Anyone looking at the map for a village or hamlet to visit will seize on the name of Booze. It sounds as if it could be the ideal place to enjoy a good drink.

Unfortunately the hamlet of Booze does not have a pub. The name Booze comes not from the beverage, but from the Old English word for Bowehouse, which merely means the House on the Bend. Booze started life as a lead mining community, one that made a great contribution to the Industrial Revolution. The miners abandoned Booze when cheap imports of lead began to flood into the country. Now Booze is just one row of houses with several farms surrounding it.

However just down the valley at Langthwaite is the Red Lion Inn. This village once had five inns and four beerhouses to cater for the 1,500 people who lived and worked in the dale. Now there are only 40 permanent residents living in Langthwaite.

The Red Lion Inn is a two-roomed country pub. It still has the original large beams with a large fireplace. The bar has an irregularly shaped stone counter which faces a series of high backed settees.

It is similar to a traditional rural Irish pub in that it sells almost everything. Visitors are able to buy their stamps and postcards, films for their cameras, Elastoplasts for the blisters that develop while walking over these moors or a copy of just about every book that has been published on the neighbourhood, at the same time as purchasing their drink.
The Red Lion Inn sells from the local Black Sheep Brewery at Masham, only a few dales away over the moors. There is the original Black Sheep Bitter and newer Riggwelter Ale. Riggwelter is a deep chestnut coloured beer with a strength of 5.9%. It has an aroma of freshly ground coffee with a hint of banana and liquorice.

Its unusual name comes from a Dales dialect word for a sheep that has rolled over onto its back and is unable to get up without human assistance. The word originally came from the Norsemen who settled in these dales. It is a merging of two words, rigg meaning back and velte for overturn. This beer has become one of the most popular beers in Scandinavia with around 30,000 bottles being exported to Sweden alone each year.

Black Sheep Bitter, at 3.8% is a well hopped, light golden coloured refreshing beer with a lingering bitterness.
The door carries a notice requesting that the men remove their caps. There are numerous local prints and memorabilia, including autographed photographs of stars, such as Phil Collins and David Jason, and a fox’’s head covering the walls.

The Red Lion Inn is a good talking pub, with strangers being welcomed. A lot of the conversation covers local issues, such as the plan to restrict ownership of new housing to needy Dales people and those that work in the Dales, or it might be the latest rules thought up by DEFRA or the current prices for produce at the marts.

“You wouldn’t do this job if you didn’t like it”, says Rowena Hutchison, who has spent four decades as landlady of the Red Lion. “There were no pubs in our family until my father moved us up here from Leeds. He was a headmaster, but he was going a little deaf, so he decided to retire.”

Rowena, who started in business as a rose breeder and grower, still has 10,000 rose bushes in a field over the road. There is still a 48 feet long greenhouse in the field, possibly waiting for Rowena’s retirement from the Red Lion one day.

The walk from Booze to the Red Lion Inn may be bracing, but it is well worth doing to get the visitor in the right frame of mind to enjoy the pub’’s hospitality and the Black Sheep Products.

“At one time, it was only the locals in here over Christmas and New Year,” says Rowena. “Now people have this idea that an idyllic time in the Dales during winter is sitting in a pub in front of a log fire with a slight smothering of snow outside the window.”
Whatever the season, the Red Lion Inn at Langthwaite is well worth a visit!