That Was The Year That Was!

Dan Walker was walking his dog when he met Tony Foulds

Cary (left) and Ian at their new venture

Rob Hattersley on the lawn at The Maynard

AS I write the blog, now in its fifth year, has had almost 80,000 views in 2019, well more than double the previous year. The total (check the front page for the latest figure) is over 183,000 since Another Helping first appeared in 2015.

It’s gratifying that so many people like this mix of restaurant reviews, recipes, food history and current news, particularly when the abject failure of the local newspapers to cover the scene properly leaves so many people wanting more.

Is it poor reporting, laziness or being too timid to pick up the phone that leaves them simply rewriting what appears on hotel and restaurant websites?

So when Hassop Hall Hotel suddenly closed, to be bought as a private house, only this blog told the full story of who had bought it. You can join the 11,000 readers who read it here

It was the same story with the closure of another hotel, The Maynard closed at Grindleford. Local papers hardly touched it but you can read about it here and here, at Peter and Rob save the day for Maynard

There were plenty of other scoops, such as the latest exploits of chef Cary Brown, revamping the Hathersage Social Club with businessman Ian Earnshaw.

There was much else. Other top reads (as in previous years) were Derbyshire oatcakes and Sheffield  Fishcake

The biggest volume of traffic, though, had nothing to do with food but everything to do with abject reporting. The big story of the year was how a local pensioner, Tony Foulds, had spent a lifetime tending a memorial to crashed WW2 American airmen in Endcliffe Park.

But did he? And why did nobody see him? And why did his eye witness account contradict the official record of the time? But all it takes is a credulous BBC presenter and local papers such as the Sheffield Star and Yorkshire Post to keep silent on what they knew to be a fantasy to become fake news.

If the BBC and other couldn’t tell the truth this blog had to here and  here

Thanks to this blog, some 22,000 readers know the real story.

So what will 2020 bring? Who knows? But Another Helping will bring it to you first.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bakewell’s ‘Downton’ sold

Hassop Hall Hotel, near Bakewell, has been sold and will close on September 29. It has been bought by a local businessman as a private house. MARTIN DAWES recalls a couple of visits for the Sheffield Star.

YOUR first glimpse of Hassop Hall Hotel, once through the wrought iron archway, could take your breath away. “It was like being in an episode of Downton Abbey,” said one overawed visitor on TripAdvisor, reeling from the atmosphere and the service.

If your next glimpse was of a male peacock there could be trouble. If in the mood it would either try to fight or mate with your vehicle. “It doesn’t like blue cars,” then owner Tom Chapman told us on our first visit.

Twenty years later, when we returned to dine again, the peacocks had gone. They were not providing the sort of welcome guests expect from a hotel. So had Mr Chapman, who died in 2013. “They were being naughty and Dad took them home,” said his son Tom junior who succeeded him in running the place with his identical twin Richard.

Hassop Hall, with its stuffy, Edwardian country house menus, seldom troubled the food guides. There was poached salmon, veloute of fish soup St Tropez (seen, as named, nowhere else in the world) and five roasts although the signature dish of duckling in a salt crust was worth having.

“Food for Americans,” sneered one visitor and if a little unkind was not entirely incorrect.

Hassop Hall, which is Grade II* listed, dates back to the Domesday Book but the present building, three storeys of honey coloured sandstone with seven bays, is from 1774. Some, like a Downton film set, is even more recent. The bar had been the garage and there were fake beams and heraldic emblems painted on hardboard. Legend has it that some of the oak panelling elsewhere came from Sheffield Castle

On our first visit we’d met Mr Chapman senior there as he greeted visitors. He sized up our worth in one look, smiled and asked “Anniversary?” We didn’t tell him until later when I gently pointed out my surprise at being served tinned peas. “We’ve not got round to nouvelle cuisine, petit pois,” he murmured.

He never did get round to it. Six years ago it was still silver service, silver cloches and carving at the table for its £43 a head (more on Saturdays) dinners. But you did feel like a million dollars. It will have cost several more millions for the new owner to buy Hassop to convert into a private house. When the Chapmans bought it in 1975 to turn it into a hotel they were only the fifth family to be associated with the hall in 900 years.

I remember the main dining room as one of the nicest I’ve eaten in, baskets of fruit on each widely spaced table. There are three private dining rooms and 13 bedrooms, as well as a ballroom. The Green Room has a marbled Tuscan columned chimneypiece.

You need a bit of brass to eat there (rooms can cost over £300 a night) and a bit of brass to buy it. Locals will miss it. “It’s a bit of an institution for lots of folk but not really on my list. Honest but uninspiring fare,” said one observer.

Hassop has a rich history. In the 14th century the 11 month old heiress was sold by the king for 50 marks and resold for double that to the Plumpton family. A century later it passed to the Eyres, then the Leslies and in 1919 was bought by the Stephensons before Tom Chapman took over.

It’s another chapter in the hall’s long history. Who knows, perhaps the peacocks might return? But the new owner better not have a blue car.

The hall has been bought by John Hill, who owns a chain of nursing homes, and his wife Alex. They live locally. Mr Hill is said to be prepared to throw money at updating the ancient pile. According to local gossip, he paid to have power lines moved because they spoiled the view at his current address.

The Chapmans say the decision to sell was ‘a difficult one for us to make but we feel it is the right time.’