The Stag Inn

History

Taken over

April 1917 — an early village acquisition

Returned to private hands

Around 1973

Closed by floods

Dec 2015 to June 2017, then Jan 2020 to June 2022

Four small rooms off a central bar, low beams, stone-flagged floors, wood burners. Plainly an old building, though no build date has been traced for it.

The scheme acquired it in April 1917, which is early for a village pub, and it wasn't back in private hands until around 1973. It joins the Wheatsheaf, the Crown, the Royal Oak and the Lowther Arms in showing how far out into the Eden valley the scheme reached.

Then the river. Sitting where it does, the Stag has been hit repeatedly: closed by the December 2015 floods and not open again until 8 June 2017, roughly eighteen months out, then shut again from January 2020 to June 2022. That December 2015 event was Storm Desmond, the same one that put the Turf out for four months. With Carlisle RFC's 2005 flooding, that's three venues on this site the Eden has closed.

Eighteen months lost to water, then another two and a half years shut, and it's still trading. New owners have reopened it with a daytime coffee-and-bakes menu and a fire-led evening one. The Sunday roasts get the reviews. Hours are limited, largely Wednesday to Sunday, so ring before you drive out.

It's close to the Hadrian's Wall Path, which brings walkers — the same draw as the Stanwix pubs on the line of the Wall.