Old Dalby

The Crown

The Crown Inn is the main event here. It's a traditional pub of considerable age that nearly wasn't — it fell into decline, the village campaigned to save it, got it registered as an Asset of Community Value, and it reopened in August 2015 after extensive refurbishment. It does bold, honest food: steaks, homemade pies, authentic pizzas, something called The Crown Burger, and vibrant vegetable dishes, all made with local ingredients. The beer garden is described by visitors as beautiful and enormous. Dogs and muddy boots are welcome, which is useful given the walking country around here.

The Wolds

Old Dalby sits in the Leicestershire Wolds — the higher, open, rolling ground between Melton Mowbray and Nottingham. The village was formerly called Wold Dalby, or Dalby on the Wolds, which tells you everything about the landscape. You're on rural roads, with bus connections into Melton Mowbray.

Church and Domesday

St John the Baptist church is Grade II listed, originally Norman but rebuilt in 1835 by Thomas Winter in Perpendicular style. He used red sandstone ashlar rather than local ironstone, on the grounds that ironstone weathers badly. It has a west tower with four bells. Pevsner gave it a couple of pages.

The Domesday Book recorded Old Dalby in 1086 with 24 households, including 13 villagers and 2 freemen. That put it in the largest 40 per cent of settlements at the time. By 1931 the population was 315, and in 1936 the parish was abolished and merged into Broughton and Old Dalby, which is the kind of administrative indignity small places learn to absorb.

The Railway Test Track

On the edge of the village, there's a railway test track established in 1970. It was originally built for testing Advanced Passenger Trains and has since been used for London Underground Jubilee Line rolling stock and Eurostar test runs. Some of the most significant trains in British railway history have done their first miles here, in a village of a few hundred people.

A Summer Evening

The Crown's beer garden fills up on summer evenings. People bring their dogs.