Craven Beer Festival

Yorkshires Perfect Pint

This 16th Century Inn lies in the heart of Wharfdale, offering great food and ale and character you always hope to find in Yorkshire

Outside, a beer garden offers superb views of the dale and the heather thatched cruck barn. The pub is an ideal base for walkers/ travellers, with a complete network of footpaths taking you through some of the most picturesque scenary in the Dales.

from the river Wharfe

Video look round the Pub, short film .wmv

Society for the Preservation of beers from the Wood West Riding Pub of the Season '08

360 panoramic view (3mb)    Once downloaded, Hold click & move for a look around

360 panoramic view outside (2mb) Once downloaded, Hold click & move for a look around Or Webcam of views

 

SIR WILLIAM CRAVEN – DICK WHITTINGTON.  In the 16th century William Craven was born to a pauper’s family in Appletreewick. The Rector of Burnsall found him a job in London, and he travelled by cart to London where he rapidly worked his way up through his employers’ firm, eventually taking it over, making his fortune, and finally becoming Lord Mayor of London.  On his return to Appletreewick he enlarged the High Hall, made the road from Appletreewick to Burnsall, built Burnsall Bridge, built Burnsall School, and repaired St Wilfrids church.

  He had an enormous influence on the area and his descendants became the Earls of Craven. The Craven Arms pub was part of his Estate and appropriately the heavy oak beam over the fireplace in the Cruck Barn came out of the High Hall during recent renovations. His story is that of Dick Whittington and his coat of arms still hangs over the front door, and hangs over the Cruck Barn fireplace and over the Dining Room and Tap Room fireplaces.

     The Craven Arms dates back to the 16th century, with signs of earlier origins, and has retained its original features including original fireplaces, heavy low beamed ceilings and stone flagged floors.  It was originally a farm house and probably developed into a public house over the years by the farmers’ wife brewing ale in the kitchen and selling it to drovers herding cattle sheep and geese to market and to passers by supplementing the family income. There was never any planning permission for it to be a pub as it just gradually came into being.   The brew would have been ale, not beer, as the true meaning of ‘ale’ is a drink produced from barley alone without hops, which were not available or possibly not even heard of at that time.

In the first half of the 20th century before electricity arrived in the 1950s, the Craven Arms was gas lit, as it is today. At that time, the gas came from carbide  produced on the premises. Older residents in the area recall the lights going dim and the landlord having to go round the back to put more water on his carbide! Up to 1926 the Court Leet was held at the Craven Arms, dealing with petty crimes in the area, and is likely to be the reason why the village stocks are located just to the left of the building.

Photos - click to enlarge

	The Stocks	The Beer Garden