The restored windmill on the skyline above Long Clawson has a white ogee cap in the Lincolnshire style, which is odd for a village in Leicestershire. But then Long Clawson has always been slightly difficult to categorise. It sits in the Vale of Belvoir, on heavy clay that's better for cows than crops, and produces roughly 65% of all the Stilton cheese made in England. The village itself is a single long street following the Clawson Beck through a gentle valley — the "Long" in the name describes the shape, not a judgement on the drive to get here, though that applies too.
The Crown and Plough is the last pub standing. There were five once. It's a Grade II listed freehouse dating from 1730, and it does the sensible thing of leaning heavily into the fact that one of the country's largest Stilton dairies operates a few hundred yards away. The Ploughman's comes with Stilton and Cheddar. The Melton Mowbray Pork Pie is on the menu. There's belly of pork with fondant potatoes and apple cider sauce, stone-baked pizzas, and fish and chips that guests keep mentioning in reviews. Food is served Thursday to Sunday. They keep up to four real ales on, including beers from Poachers and Grasshopper, both local breweries. Rooms are available if you'd rather not drive back along the lanes in the dark.
Those lanes are worth knowing about. There's no railway station — Melton Mowbray and Bottesford are the nearest — and the bus service is the kind best described as theoretical. You'll want a car. The A606 between Melton Mowbray and Nottingham is the main artery; from there it's minor roads into the village.
For walking, the Clawson, Hose and Harby Trail is a seven-mile loop through three Vale of Belvoir villages on field paths and farm tracks. The terrain is gently rolling — this is dairy country, not hill country — with open views toward the ridge where Belvoir Castle sits. The windmill appears on the skyline as you circle back. Shorter footpaths and bridleways thread out in most directions.
Long Clawson Dairy was founded in 1911 by about twelve local farming families who pooled their milk. It's now one of only six dairies in England licensed to produce Stilton under the Protected Designation of Origin rules, which restrict production to Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. The dairy employs around 200 people and turns out 6,700 tonnes of cheese a year across 60 varieties. It is not open to the public as a shop, which feels like a missed opportunity, but the Stilton finds its way onto plates at the Crown and Plough regardless.
St Remigius Church is built from the same red ironstone as the nearby manor house. The dedication to St Remigius — patron saint of France — is rare in English churches and probably traces back to Norman connections in the Vale. Inside, there's a medieval effigy of William Bozon, a crusader. The church seats 300, which suggests either considerable medieval ambition or considerably more people.
The Domesday surveyors recorded the place as Clachestone in 1086 — a name mixing Scandinavian and Saxon, meaning something like "Klac's settlement." It was valued at £7 10s annually, with around 83 households, which made it one of the larger villages in Leicestershire at the time.
On a weekday afternoon, the Crown and Plough is quiet, the dairy is doing whatever dairies do behind closed doors, and the Beck runs under the bridge without fuss. It's a village that makes a lot of cheese and doesn't make a lot of noise about it.
