Mires Lane
Wardlow Mires
Derbyshire
SK17 8RW
The Three Stags Heads is a delightfully unpretentious 300 year old country pub with a simple whitewashed exterior (photos 1 & 2) and a small stone-flagged bar with a cast iron range. Historic England says it retains a little-altered domestic-scale interior, now a rare survival.
The first time I visited the pub, probably in the early 1980s, the preserved remains of a cat were on display in a glass case in the bar, The cat has now gone but outside there are more animal remains in the form of the pub sign with the skulls of the eponymous three stags heads (photo 3). The only other pub with the name is at Darley Bridge, also in the Peak District.
The pub’s owner, Pat Fuller also runs a pottery business on the premises and opening times are limited to Thursday to Sunday. The pub and pottery were run for many years by Pat and her husband Geoff, but sadly Geoff died in 2022.
The house beer is Black Lurcher, an 8% beer brewed by Abbeydale, and is named after one of their dogs. If that’s a bit too strong there are also changing beers from Eyam and Abbeydale breweries.
The lurcher was the inspiration for Neil Gaiman’s short novel Black Dog, which is set in the pub. The mummified cat also gets a mention.
The road passing the Three Stags Heads is the busy A623 which runs between Chesterfield and Manchester. The moorland section past the pub was the haunt in the late 1600s of local highwayman Black Harry who was eventually hanged and gibbeted opposite the pub. Just over 100 years later Anthony Lingard from Tideswell was hanged in the same spot for the murder of the tollkeeper at Wardlow Mires turnpike.
