The Blue Bell

History

Opened Early 18th century

Built

Early 18th century

Listed

Grade II, 19 September 1984

Look up

A 1930s State Management swing sign, still there

Run by

Eddie and Vicky Faulder, since 2025

Best Pub

News & Star finalist, 2025 and 2026

Look up as you go in. Most scheme pubs lost the state's plain signage decades ago, but the listing for the Blue Bell records a 1930s projecting swing sign on a wrought-iron bracket at first-floor level: the scheme's own ironwork, still hanging there.

The inn under it is far older. It is an early eighteenth-century building on the east side of Dalston's square, next to St Michael's church, which puts it among the older buildings on this site, with the Sportsman and the Moorhouse Royal Oak; Mike Tuer's records take the Blue Bell back before 1776, and Hutchinson's History of Cumberland counted eight ale-houses in Dalston parish in 1794. Grade II listed since 19 September 1984: two storeys and four bays, painted rendered walls on a painted squared plinth, a graduated slate roof, six-panel doors, broad sashes, and a small ground-floor fire window now with leaded panes.

It was one of several inns on the square, and is the only one left. The Kings Arms was next door, in what is now the Country Kitchen, and closed as a pub in 1924. The Post Office was the Indian King, also called the African's Head, which closed in 1918. The Crown and Mitre, in the building now partly Dalston Butchers, opened on 18 September 1822 and closed around 1883. Dalston was a village with work in it: a forge from 1756 making spades and farm tools, its first cotton mill in 1782 and three by the middle of the nineteenth century, flax and canvas making besides, and a Friday market for meat that had lapsed by 1900.

The listing has the Central Control Board taking it over in 1916, though the date is also given as early 1917; Historic England's gazetteer settles on August 1916, when it came from the Carlisle New Brewery. It stayed in the scheme until the end, returning to private hands in 1973.

Its manageress once caused a small diplomatic incident. During a Temperance Legislation League conference at the end of September 1935, a delegate named Herron had Mrs Lang of the Blue Bell fetched to the Central Hotel in Carlisle on a busy Saturday evening, by a message to Dalston post office because the pub had no telephone, and asked her to explain the scheme to the delegates. The general manager, A. E. Mitchell, protested that 'we have nothing whatever to be ashamed of' and told the League the men involved would not be welcome in Carlisle again while he was in charge. The League apologised.

The freehold belongs to Star Pubs, and it had a restless few years. New owners came in December 2020. It shut on 6 March 2023 while Star looked for a new operator, and reopened on 31 July 2023 under a father and son, Mike and Steve Black.

The settled chapter started in 2025, when Eddie Faulder, head chef, and his wife Vicky took it on. Eddie's description is "just a proper old pub that does good food", and they run it as a family village local with a strong drinks trade alongside the kitchen. It reached the finals of the News & Star's Best Pub competition three months after they opened, and again in 2026, with a five-week refurbishment planned for after Dalston Festival week and the Dalston Show.

It is two-roomed and food-led: a pub-classics menu of steak pie, bacon chop and chicken parm, more adventurous dishes from local farmers and butchers, a steak night every Thursday, and every pudding made in the house. Changing cask ales, and outdoor space at the back.