Northern fell character
Hesket Newmarket
A quiet Lake District village where community-owned beer, market-square history and walks into the Caldbeck Fells meet.
- Best for
- Community-owned beer and quieter fell walks
- Give it
- A village afternoon or a longer walking day
- Don't miss
- An ale brewed behind the Old Crown
The Fox verdict
The village that kept its own pint
Come for a direct encounter with Hesket Newmarket's cooperative pub and brewery, then use the old market square as a springboard for the northern fells.
The Old Crown and the brewery behind it give this small village an unusually strong sense of purpose: both were bought cooperatively to preserve them. Add a traditional market cross, the Cumbria Way through the village and walking objectives on High Pike and Knott, and Hesket Newmarket rewards visitors who prefer a focused place with a story to tell.
Where to go
Places in Hesket Newmarket
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesHesket Newmarket Brewery Visitor Centre and Shop
The brewery's own visitor centre and shop, beside the pub whose handpulls serve its locally named ales.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 30 minutes
- Locality
- adjacent to the Old Crown
Hesket Newmarket Market Cross
The market-square landmark that recalls Hesket Newmarket's former role as a market town and the name 'Hazel Bush Market'.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 15 minutes
- Locality
- traditional market square
Cumbria Way
A long-distance walking route that passes through Hesket Newmarket, offering a direct way to sample the surrounding landscape.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 90 minutes for a local section
- Locality
- passing through Hesket Newmarket
Food & drink
1 placeThe Old Crown
A traditional community cooperative pub with six handpulls devoted to Hesket Newmarket Brewery ales, plus unfussy food, games and a rear beer garden.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- centre of Hesket Newmarket
- Access
- Food service is limited and advance booking is advised.
Walks & outdoors
2 placesHigh Pike
One of the named Caldbeck Fells for which Hesket Newmarket serves as a walking base.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 150 minutes, plus transfers
- Locality
- Caldbeck Fells
Knott
A second named walking objective in the Caldbeck Fells, reached with Hesket Newmarket as a base.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 150 minutes, plus transfers
- Locality
- Caldbeck Fells
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Three ways to explore Hesket Newmarket
Signature outings
The village-owned pint
Choose from six handpulls serving Hesket Newmarket Brewery ales made in the barn behind the Old Crown.
A market-town clue
Use the market cross to picture the square when Hesket Newmarket still held its market-town role.
High Pike from Hesket
Set out for High Pike with Hesket Newmarket as your base in the quieter Caldbeck Fells.
The village story
Hesket Newmarket: beer, community and northern fells
Follow the few feet from brewhouse to bar, then open out through market history and onto the Caldbeck Fells.
A pint brewed and saved here
Every one of the six handpulls at the Old Crown serves beer brewed a few feet away, in a converted barn at the back of the pub. There is no other ale on the bar. If you want something the Hesket Newmarket Brewery doesn't make, you have come to the wrong place.
The pub is the centre of the village, and the village owns it. In 2003 around 150 shareholders each put in £1,500 to buy the freehold, which by most accounts makes the Old Crown the first cooperative pub in the UK. The brewery had gone the same way four years earlier, turned cooperative in 1999 to stop it closing. Jim and Liz Fearnley had started it in that barn in 1988, and it is now the oldest surviving microbrewery in Cumbria.
Fell-named ales and pub comforts
The ales are named after the fells you can see from the village: Blencathra Bitter, Skiddaw Special Bitter, Catbells Pale Ale, Scafell Blonde.
The food is unfussy — steak and ale pie, lasagne, scampi, a Sunday roast. The kitchen runs Tuesday to Saturday evenings with lunches added on Friday and Saturday, closed Mondays, and it is worth booking ahead. Dogs are welcome in the bar and the rear beer garden. There is a games room with a pool table and darts, plus live music and the occasional charity quiz.
Bottles to take home and Dickens passing through
Next door is the brewery's own visitor centre and shop, in case six taps aren't enough and you want to take some home.
Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins walked through in 1857, and Dickens described the Old Crown as a "ridiculous little inn." Behind the market cross there is a house still called Dickens House.
From market square to northern fells
The cross is a clue to what the place used to be. Hesket Newmarket was once a proper market town — the name comes from "Hazel Bush Market" — and the village still arranges itself around the square where the trading happened.
The walking is the other reason to come. The village sits under the Caldbeck Fells, the quieter northern side of the range sometimes called the back of Skiddaw, and it makes a good base for High Pike and Knott. The Cumbria Way, which runs the length of the county, passes straight through.
The road in and the pint waiting
Getting here takes some doing. There is no railway and no regular bus, so it is minor roads off the B5305 or the lanes through Caldbeck, five miles to the north. Keswick is eight miles away. St John's Church stands in the village.
The beer, though, is the thing. On any given evening the pint in your hand was made in the barn behind you, by a brewery the village bought to keep, in a pub the village bought to keep it open.
Stay around Lake District
Make a longer stay of it
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A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- The Old Crown — theoldcrownpub.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Hesket Newmarket Brewery Visitor Centre and Shop — hesketbrewery.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Hesket Newmarket Market Cross — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Cumbria Way — visitlakedistrict.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- High Pike — ukhillwalking.com other published source
- Knott — ukhillwalking.com other published source