Barnard Castle

Pubs Behind the Castle Wall

The Old Well Inn incorporates part of the medieval castle wall, had its own well, once brewed its own beer, and used to be called the Railway Hotel. It has been described as possibly one of the most historic pubs in the North East, which for a town with this many pubs is a competitive field. The resident chef, Shiv, cooks Indian, Chinese, Thai and traditional British food in the same kitchen, and the bar keeps at least five real ales, including a house beer from Mithril called Cummings and Goings. Bill Bryson has been in. So, in a sense, has everyone.

The pubs are the thing here. The Three Horseshoes reopened after a major refit with eleven rooms and a spot in the 2026 Good Beer Guide. The Turk's Head is busy and does no evening food. The Coach and Horses has a sheltered beer garden and a pool table. The Raby Arms is a disco at weekends, open until late, and honest about it.

Market Food and Castle Stone

For food to take home there are butchers in every direction. McFarlane's does black pudding and its own sausages. Castle Bank turned the old Marden Farm Shop into a deli with its own bakery, pies and continental cheeses. On the shelves you'll find Cotherstone cheese, a sharp farmhouse cheese made to an old family recipe at Quarry House near the village of the same name; Rick Stein named it one of his food heroes. There's a farmers' market on Wednesdays and the first Saturday of the month.

The town sits on the north bank of the Tees at the edge of the Pennines, the ruined castle standing on a clifftop above the river with a great round tower of around 1200 in the inner ward. Richard III's white boar is carved above a window in the great chamber; the family who built the place, the Balliols, endowed a college at Oxford and briefly put one of their own on the throne of Scotland. After a siege in 1569 the castle was left to fall down, which it has done handsomely.

Riverside Abbey and the Market Cross

From Scar Top you can walk down past the castle wall, cross the Green Bridge, and follow the Tees to Egglestone Abbey, a free English Heritage ruin about a mile and a half out. The longer version loops through Romaldkirk and Cotherstone and takes a little over four hours.

The octagonal Market Cross in the town centre has been a courtroom, a gaol, a fire station and a butter market in its time. Its weather vane has two holes in it, said to be musket shots from an 1804 contest between a soldier and a gamekeeper arguing over who was the better shot.

Dickens and the Stopped Clock

Dickens stayed at the King's Head in the winter of 1837, researching the Yorkshire schools that became Dotheboys Hall. While there he noticed a clockmaker at Amen Corner who had propped a longcase clock in his doorway so the town would know the time, the church clock having stopped. Dickens took the man's name for a magazine.

The Silver Swan

At the Bowes Museum, up the hill, a 252-year-old silver swan preens itself, looks round, and catches a fish. It does this every day at two o'clock.