Alan Cookman

visits The Ramblers Retreat, Dimmingsdale

OUR first planned visit to this secluded outpost in the depths of the Churnet Valley was aborted on the advice of the management.

An overnight white-out had rendered the venue inaccessible except by sled, and Yellow Pages failed to list a convenient branch of Rent-a-Husky.

The only customers who did show up on that wintry Sunday in February did so on foot.

The Ramblers Retreat is not the easiest venue to get to at the best of times – the drive from nearby Oakamoor is a bit of a knuckle-whitener – but in snow it's a challenge Sir Ranulph Fiennes would decline, pleading a sore throat.

But it's worth the effort, and a week later, the snow had gone, the temperature had crept up a little, and there wasn't a single space on the vast car park.

The vehicles belonged to ramblers, for this is walking country, of course, and they were out en masse, booted, parka-ed and rosy-cheeked.

I might have felt humbled by their stamina if I wasn't afraid that by the time we found somewhere to park the walk back to the restaurant would be a not inconsiderable ramble itself.

Dating from the 1800s, when it was built as a gatehouse on the estate of the Earls of Shrewsbury, The Ramblers Retreat is precisely what it says on the tin.

Walkers have been refuelling here, either inside or in the extensive tea gardens and covered outbuildings, for nearly 30 years, and it remains an innately English operation, serving wholesome, traditional dishes in a stunning setting.

The menu is the same seven days a week, and features a full range of snacks, sandwiches, filled oatcakes, cakes, scones and teacakes.

In the restaurant, there's a choice of four starters and six mains, plus specials, and prices are below the average for a venue of this class. We ate in the warm, cosy conservatory, watching weary ramblers passing by on their way to well-earned refreshment.

The roast of the day (£7.95) was a choice between beef, pork or turkey, and although roast pork appealed, so did the home-made pie of the day – beef, ale and mushroom (£7.75).

When my pie arrived it might have had home-made stamped on the crust, or running through it like Blackpool rock. This was a pie that was perfect in every way, from the lusty chunks of tender beef to the most delicious shortcrust pastry.

Compared to my wedge of pie, a pie so stuffed with meat that the pastry struggled to contain it, Herself's roast beef (£7.95) was too finely sliced to get the juices flowing with any real enthusiasm.

The beef, like everything else, is locally sourced and this kind of precision carving seems an affront to quality meat.

Herself did say it tasted well enough, and there was plenty of it, but she felt that the effect was spoiled in the cutting of the meat.

With the beef, she had roast potatoes and roast parsnips, and we both had peas, new potatoes, cabbage, broccoli and carrots, all freshly cooked.

Herself had started with a wonderfully thick French farmhouse-style vegetable soup (£3.65), and I thoroughly enjoyed my smoke mackerel fillet (£4.50), served hot with soft brown bread smothered in butter.

For afters, I chose the three-tier coffee and walnut gateau (£3.85), a delicious confection that seemed to taste better and better the nearer I got to the end, and Herself finished with a fresh fruit Pavlova (£3.85), featuring most of the fruits known to man.

The Ramblers Retreat has no bar, but there are several inexpensive wines and a selection of bottled beers, many of them brewed in the district.