IT was a September Sunday that proved that summer has slipped by and autumn is settling in. It was dreich, so grey and dark that it would have prevented England’s cricketers from bowling a ball and so miserable that even the drizzle couldn’t be bothered to fall, just hanging in the air and coating everything with depressing dampness.
It matched my mood. One of my summer jobs was to creosote the shed, one I tackled with such enthusiasm, up and down ladders, rolling over walls, leaning over roofs, that said shed is now an impermeable marvel, dispelling all autumnal rains, but I woke up to find I’d knackered my knee. A piece of cartilage had become trapped in the joint, which my physio has contorted and dislocated to unlock, but has left me with moments when I fear I may never climb stairs again.
What to do? A walk, however brief, was out of the question, so we decided on a drive to one of our most distant pubs: the High Force Hotel, which is west even of Middleton-in-Teesdale.
The creeping rustiness of the trees’ leaves as we drove up the dale confirmed that the season’s were changing, and when we arrived, even the Coldberry Gutter – the leadminers’ great slash in the landscape at the top of the dale – was hidden by the low, oozing cloud.
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Visitors to the hotel park in the High Force waterfall car park and give their car registration at the bar to avoid the charges.
Inside the hotel, which is owned by Raby Estates, it was even darker than outside. It has an old fashioned atmosphere, with cow skins covering the floorboards, a high-backed wooden settle bench blocking out drafts and a delicious aroma of Sunday lunch.
We’d booked ahead, and got one of the last tables in the darkly panelled dining room. Every occupied chairback had a damp coat and jumper hanging from it, and through the window, a rhododendron bush glowed bright green in the gloom outside.
The Sunday menu was exactly as you’d expect, with chicken, beef, lamb, ham and nut roast priced from £16 up to £21.50.
There were six starters, priced from £7.50 – black pudding and peppercorn sauce – up to £10.50, for King Prawn Creole, and the soup of the day was an adventurous-sounding chipotle and root vegetable.
We went straight for our main courses, which took a little over 40 minutes to arrive. Theo, our son, had chosen the most expensive meat, lamb, while I had the beef (a reasonable £17.50), while Petra, my wife and driver, had the nut roast (£16).
The meats were both excellent quality, cutting so easily and without any wastage.
They were served with a good, crispy Yorkshire, a couple of roast potatoes and an artfully-shaped dollop of mash. I think the mash had an unexpected touch of cheese running through it, which I really liked, although I worried that if grandma, a fromage-phobic, had accompanied us, there would have been trouble.
Petra’s nut roast was very nice, with pumpkin and sunflower seeds in the mix which gave it a good crunchy texture. It came with its own gravy.
We shared a fine pile of vegetables: peas, beans, sugar snaps, carrots, swede and a bowl of red cabbage. In truth, there was far too much for the three of us.
There was also a little jug of extra meaty gravy which, sad to say, at the end of my meal, I lapped up with a teaspoon because it tasted great, and I hoped it was too dark for anyone else to see.
Theo and I decided to try a dessert, which were all priced at £8. There was, of course, a cheesecake and a STP, but I went for a banoffee tart, with ice cream, while Theo opted for the homemade rice pudding with stewed apples.
Strawberries had replaced the apples when it arrived, but warm and sweet, the switch really did not deter him, and he finished it within seconds.
The banoffee tart had a great caramel base and freshly sliced banana, but the ice cream had been switched for squirty cream, which was a little disappointing.
The bill for the three of us, including soft drinks, came to £100.21. Service was a little slow, but in the cosy warm dining room that didn’t really matter. It was a standard Sunday lunch – the hotel does far more adventurous things, like its three course stargazing supper – but a high standard.
Outside, the plan was for the able-bodied to have a quick walk down to the wonderful waterfall but the dreich had turned to wet, pelting rain. But, as I hobbled on my crutches to the car park, there was a miraculous sunburst that illuminated the straggly low clouds and beautifully floodlit the daleside greens of the Coldberry hush.
An unpromising day had delivered much.
The details
The High Force Hotel
Alston Road
Forest-in-Teesdale
DL12 0XH
Tel: 01833-622336
Web: raby.co.uk/high-force (restaurant can be booked online)
The ratings
Surroundings: 8
Food quality: 8
Service: 7
Value for money: 7
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