The Fleece Countryside Inn: Histories of Your Local Pubs

When your family has been pouring ale in Yorkshire since 1307, you tend to develop a deep appreciation for the other old watering holes that cling to these hillsides. I for one never get tired of going to other pubs haha! We’ve always believed that great pubs don’t compete because they simply look after their patch of the valley and give thirsty travellers a reason to pull on their walking boots.

One place up the hill that deserves a spot in your weekend plans is The Fleece Countryside Inn up in Barkisland. A pub Richard Lockyer and I and many more helped hold the best bonfire nights in the county!!

Perched high on Ripponden New Bank with sweeping, panoramic views looking right back down over the Ryburn Valley, The Fleece has plenty of heritage in its bones. An older building originally stood on the site but was demolished after great fire that damaged it completely and it was re-built back in 1737, and re-started it's life during the height of the local handloom cloth trade. It was Mary and Joseph Dean who did the re-build of the then farmhouse and they had the inscription above the door done which can still be seen now. The name itself is a nod to the lifeblood of this valley, the woollen fleeces that weavers and packhorse teams hauled over the Pennines long before steam power took hold. Over the centuries, it evolved from an eighteenth-century roadside hostelry into a flourishing countryside coaching inn. Today, while it boasts a brilliant two-AA-rosette kitchen and stylish rooms, it hasn’t lost that welcoming grit: you can still pitch up with dogs and walking boots after battling the weather on the hilltops. The earliest recorded innkeepers are John and Mary Ainley in 1814. Men and their animals used for pack-horse trains to pull the wool and cloth would stop here after waling up the old bank and refresh before going on further.

Joining the Dots on the Map: The Walk Down to The Old Bridge Inn

If you’re mapping out a proper local pub crawl that takes in big skies, historic stones, and rewarding pints, pairing The Fleece with a finish at our doorstep at The Old Bridge Inn is just about as good as it gets. The beauty of it is that gravity does all the hard work:

The Distance: It’s a short, brisk stretch of barely half a mile (around 800 to 900 yards door-to-door), taking roughly 10 to 15 minutes on foot.

The Route: Step out from The Fleece and take the old cobbled bridleway and steep bank cutting down off Ripponden Old Bank and Priest Lane towards the river. You’ll be walking directly over ancient stones that packhorses, mill clerks, and weavers have trodden since the middle ages.

The Finish: As you hit the valley floor, the path deposits you straight at the ancient packhorse bridge and our low-beamed doorway, where we’ve been keeping the fires lit since Edward II was on the throne.

The Ideal Ryburn Crawl Leg of the historic duo

Start your afternoon up at The Fleece: grab a table on the terrace, drink-in that panoramic view across Calderdale, and enjoy a pint from any of their bars. Once you’ve taken in the hilltops, head down the historic cobbles into the sheltered part of the valley and duck inside our flagstoned bar for a hearty homemade meal and a well-kept cask ale by the hearth.

It’s only a ten-minute walk between 1737 up on the crest and 1307 down by the water, but together they capture everything that makes an afternoon around Ripponden and Barkisland worth drinking to. xx