Colin the tortoise has his own Royal Mail bicycle, and it lives parked somewhere near the door of the Yew Tree Inn, which tells you most of what you need to know about the place before you have even ordered a drink.
The Yew Tree is the only pub in Cauldon and effectively the only amenity, but it does the work of several. Behind the bar sit two pairs of Queen Victoria's stockings in a glass case, a 3,000-year-old Grecian urn, a penny farthing, a boneshaker bicycle, something labelled the Acme Dog Carrier, and an ancient serpent — the musical instrument, not the animal. A player piano and a Victorian jukebox still work; the jukebox takes 10p a go.
Landlord Alan East, who ran the pub for nearly fifty years after taking it over from his mother, once described it to the Morning Advertiser as "a museum with a licence." Dan and Maisy have run it day-to-day since 2013.
You eat among church pews and antique settles, some reportedly salvaged from old Alton Towers rides, while Maude the resident dog — barky, by all accounts — lets you know you have arrived. There is no Sky Sports and no television at all. Instead there is darts, dominoes, cribbage, shove ha'penny and table skittles.
Food runs to pork pies and pickled eggs, always available, Staffordshire oatcakes, pie and mash, stews and filled rolls, with vegan options, served until 8pm in winter and 9pm in summer — worth booking ahead. Beer comes from Burton Bridge Brewery, with guest ales occasionally, alongside German lagers.
It sits on Church Lane, tucked behind a large yew tree, between a cement works and a quarry, roughly halfway between Leek and Ashbourne — and that cement works is not incidental scenery. The Aggregate Industries plant opened in 1957, commissioned by Hugh Molson after post-war steel shortages, and still produces around 960,000 tonnes of cement a year, close to a tenth of everything used in the UK. The limestone that feeds it comes from Cauldon Low, the hill above the village, whose name comes from the Old English "hlaw," a burial mound.
The church, St Mary and St Lawrence, is Grade II listed and mostly late 18th century. Its altar is built from stone blocks taken from every quarry that has worked the parish — a literal record in masonry. The 1926 war memorial carries 72 names, a lot for a parish this size.
Cauldon barely troubles the Domesday Book. In 1086 it was recorded as "Caldone," under Robert of Stafford, and described simply as waste: no population, no value, one ploughland. It has had more use since.
The Manifold Way, an old railway trackbed now flat and surfaced, runs north from Waterhouses, about two miles off, good for pushchairs and bikes as much as boots. Alton Towers is 3.4 miles away, and Dovedale and Thor's Cave are reachable along the same trail network.
There is no working station; the former Caldon Low Halt closed to passengers in 1935, though its mineral line kept hauling quarry stone into the late 1980s. The nearest stations now are Blythe Bridge and Uttoxeter, ten to twelve miles off. The 108 bus, running between Leek and Ashbourne, stops at Cauldon Lowe on the Main Road.
Colin's bicycle, for what it's worth, is real, and so is Colin.
