The best pubs with rooms in the Peak District, from cosy coaching inns to rustic farmhouses
Britain’s oldest national park is a gloriously varied corner of the country, packing in a range of landscapes from dramatic ridges and ravines to pastoral valleys and pretty villages. After a day exploring the great outdoors, walking moorland tracks and riverside trails or visiting market towns and stately homes, staying the night in a country inn completes the picture. You can enjoy local ales and hearty food before retiring to a cosy, comfortable room, perhaps with a four-poster bed or a freestanding bathtub. Many places offer warming log fires and restful nooks and crannies if you just want to spend afternoons huddled up with a book and a pot of tea. Here’s our pick of the best pubs with rooms in and around the Peak District.
The Devonshire Arms at Beeley
Beeley, Derbyshire, England
8Telegraph expert rating
An 18th-century coaching inn turned upmarket Peak District bolthole with elegant rooms, a cosy bar and cut-above food, all wrapped up in a quaint village setting of Beeley. Style-wise, the Devonshire is an inn of two halves. The main bar area still has that country pub feel to it, with thick stone walls, dark wooden beams and wood-burning stoves. The brasserie, on the other hand, is a totally contemporary space with floor-to-ceiling windows and pops of colour. The 18 rooms are furnished with some interesting artworks and the odd quirky touch (an enormous bedhead, say, or flamingo-shaped lamps). Read expert review From £130 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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The Cow
Ashbourne, Derbyshire, England
8Telegraph expert rating
This South Derbyshire bolthole is a traditional village pub turned swish boutique inn, with 12 well-designed bedrooms, a cosy bar and a British tapas-style menu that champions local suppliers (they aim to source 90 per cent of ingredients within 30 miles). The bar is an appealing place in which to hunker down, with wooden beams overhead, quarry tiles underfoot and log burners either end of the room. Corridors lined with portraits of cows lead to bedrooms where the reclaimed-rustic look is overlaid with boutique hotel-style luxuries: oversized headboards and velvet quilted chairs; Netflix and Nespresso; thick linen curtains puddled on the floor and mohair throws draped over super-comfy big beds. Read expert review From £117 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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The Farmhouse at Mackworth
Mackworth, Derbyshire, England
7Telegraph expert rating
With 10 boutique-style bedrooms, an attractively designed bar and an edge-of-Derby location, The Farmhouse at Mackworth country inn is a handy base for forays into the nearby Peak District. Bedrooms are generously sized and attractively decorated in modern country inn style, with a restful colour palette of powder blues, teals and dusky pinks, and big comfortable beds topped with white duvets and knitted throws. The large lounge-bar areas, designed in a colourful mixture of rustic and contemporary elements, serves classic-meets-modern pub dishes such as Gloucester Old Spot sausages and mash, and balsamic pulled beef burger. Read expert review From £82 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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The Devonshire Arms at Pilsley
Peak District, Derbyshire, England
7Telegraph expert rating
At first glance, the Devonshire is every inch the typical country pub – a quaint, creeper-covered stone building with window boxes and benches outside, a dog bowl by the front door and cosy bar rooms. The menu features the kind of regular pub grub (pie, burger, fish and chips) that will fill you up after a day's walking. Stay overnight, though, and you'll find it has more to offer than just traditional charm – bedrooms are smart, individually designed affairs that would do any boutique hotel proud. As with all Chatsworth-owned hotels, the Duchess was closely involved in the design, and she doesn't cut corners when it comes to the finishes. Read expert review From £125 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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The Old Hall Inn
Whitehough, Peak District, England
8Telegraph expert rating
Wherever you sit in this lovely Derbyshire inn (pub, dining rooms or even the old family kitchen), you choose from the same menu. It’s big on classics (the steak and ale pie is a local legend), and when they say the ingredients are locally sourced, they mean it – they keep their own chickens and pigs, get their lamb from one of the chefs, and use trout and rabbit bartered from locals. Bedrooms are spread across the three buildings. Some with stone mullioned windows and maybe a four-poster or window seat, others more simple with pine or iron bedsteads and patchwork quilts. Every September they stage a popular beer festival. Read expert review From £95 per night Check availability Rates provided by Booking.com
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The Duncombe Arms
Ellastone, Staffordshire, England
8Telegraph expert rating
The 19th-century pub has been transformed into a characterful but contemporary country inn, complete with stone-flagged floors, open fires and a choice of little rooms to hide away in. There are cushions and sheepskins on the chairs, old foodie guides on the windowsill, and an eclectic mix of racing photos, animal paintings and newspaper obituaries on the walls. The 10 bedrooms are in Walnut House, an annexe built in the style of a barn conversion. Each room has a different look but all are immaculate, a good size and share the same view over the valley. Finishes and fittings are gratifyingly high spec, from the thick, heavy curtains and luxury linens to the Fired Earth tiles and Bamford toiletries. Read expert review From £160 per night