‘It makes you feel like a kid again’: snowed in at Britain’s highest pub
Drinks flow and friends are made as people hunker down overnight at the Tan Hill Inn in North Yorkshire
“Do you want a shot?” asks Katy Sherrington from Durham, offering up a tiny glass of a pink liquid. Nobody is going anywhere at this point, so it would be rude not to accept.
On Saturday night at the Tan Hill Inn, Britain’s highest pub, the snow is falling and the crowd of about 30 people inside know they are probably stuck here for a couple of days. Throughout the place, at the northern edge of North Yorkshire, drinks are flowing and friends are being made.
Weather warnings for snow are in place across much of the UK, and the Met Office has advised the public to only make necessary journeys, with road closures, train and flight cancellations, and rural communities becoming cut off.
That is something the staff at the Tan Hill Inn, which is 528 metres (1,732ft) above sea level, are used to. The pub has a history of what people call “snow-ins” – in 2021, 61 punters who had come to watch an Oasis tribute band were trapped for three days.
So the team are well prepared. Their electric power comes from a generator and there is enough food for about a month, “but hopefully it won’t come to that” says Nicole Hayes, one of the bar staff, who has done a number of phone interviews with local and national media in the run-up to the weather warning, such is the reputation of the pub.
Earlier in the evening, her colleague Elle Applegarth anxiously looked out the window, hoping it might still be possible to make an exit to go home and see her dog, Banana.
Word came through that the snow gates on the nearby A66 were being closed at 10.30pm, which meant anyone hoping to leave needed to make their attempt very soon or they were likely to be here for a couple of days, as the snow was forecast to only get worse.
“I’ve worked here about a year and I’ve never been snowed in,” she says. “I really want to but just not today – I’ve got a spa booked tomorrow and I don’t want to miss it.”
Together with one of the pub’s chefs, she manages to leave, but they will be the last for quite some time.
Winnie Hadi and Danny Murray from Hull had come for a night away but they soon realised one night was likely to turn into at least two.
“It adds to the adventure,” says Murray. “It makes you feel like a little kid again. I feel like I’m twagging school.”
Hadi, who works in housing for her local council, laughs as she says she might have to phone her manager to say: “I can’t come into work, sorry. It’s an act of God.”
A table over, two couples from Selby are playing cards; the winner gets to decide their next holiday destination. In the neighbouring room, groups are playing board games; in another, a little boy is performing an improvised dance routine to Miley Cyrus’s Wrecking Ball, for what appears to be the dozenth time, to a gathered group, in place of a Rag’n’Bone Man tribute act who was scheduled to be singing but didn’t make it.
But while some have been caught off-guard, there are those who have come here specifically to get snowed in.
“I’ve been trying to do a snow-in for years but nobody would come with me,” says Sherrington. She has managed to get five friends to join her and they are in exceptionally high spirits, joking with a group of men on the next table.
In the next room, attempting to eat yorkshire puddings bigger than dinner plates, are Phil and Deb Breward, coming back from a much-needed two-week Scottish road trip in their red camper van, after a rough year that included the death of Deb’s mother.
“We’ve been driving around Scotland, chasing the snow,” says Phil. “We got a little bit over new year but we’d almost given up and were heading back to Nottingham when we decided to call in here.”
On a similar trip, but with much farther to go home, are Naomi and Paul Wright, from the town of Katherine, near Darwin, Australia, on their first UK trip in 26 years to visit Naomi’s sister. They had wanted to see snow but it was a case of being “careful what you wish for”, she said.
“I said it would never happen in a million years,” says Naomi’s sister Bree Davie, who is originally from Australia but now lives in south London.
They are in the middle of reworking their plans when Davie’s phone lights up. “[The car hire manager] has just messaged to ask what time we’re dropping the car off tomorrow,” she says. They are not quite sure how to break the news.
By Sunday morning, a layer of snow has coated North Yorkshire and big snowdrifts are already forming, whipped up by the wind. A pair of young men manage to arrive in a 4x4, checking the roads for anyone who is stranded.
Despite being experienced at driving in the snow, and in the best type of vehicle for the weather, they too become momentarily stuck and need a group effort with a tow and some tracks to help them get on the move again.
As people brave the blizzard, snowmen are made, sledges are brought out for the children and, in a particularly bizarre moment, someone dons a teddy bear costume.
Inside, the pub is ringing with laughter, hour after hour. Bonds are formed, phone numbers exchanged.
Paul Wright is drinking a glass of cider by the fire: “I couldn’t be in a happier place right now.”
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