The Kirkstyle Inn, owned by industry veteran Nick Parkinson, is a gorgeously refurbished, 40-seater restaurant in Slaggyford, Northumberland. I’ll grant you, there are less alluring British placenames than Slaggyford, but you’ll be hard pushed to find them. You’ll also be hard pushed to find Slaggyford itself, because it’s set in the South Tyne valley, in what’s officially Northumberland, but sort of also on the edge of Cumbria, and along a remote lane that will make your satnav go “wibble”.
Slaggyford and the whole of the North Pennines are the British countryside at its most beautiful. It’s lush, green, unpopulated and largely unvisited, because its purpose to tourists is unclear. All the pretty lakes and the shops selling Jemima Puddleduck figurines have given way to brooding stone circles and “jam for sale – leave money in box” signs. As a child in Cumbria, one of our most exciting days out over this way involved an ascent by car over Hartside Pass, a long, steep climb – pure Game of Thrones stuff. The cafe at the top sold rock buns, which was the peak of excitement, until one day it burned down and that was that. If Slaggyford feels like an odd place for Parkinson, son of Michael Parkinson (yes, Parky), to set up shop, bringing his 50 years of hospitality experience, well, yes, it is.
