The George and Dragon keeps eight ales on tap, at least seven of them brewed by Church End Brewery over in Ridge Lane. It became the brewery's first off-site pub in 2010, and they've made it into exactly the kind of place you'd want to drink their beer — a proper freehouse with a beer garden and dogs welcome. Tony, the resident chef, makes everything from scratch using local produce. The Frank Parker sausages and mash are good. The handmade scotch eggs and sausage rolls are the sort of thing you eat at the bar while telling yourself you'll have a proper lunch later, then don't. Food runs Tuesday to Saturday, lunchtimes only.
Stoke Golding has three pubs for a village of 1,684 people, and they're all within walking distance of each other. The Three Horseshoes doubles as the Mango Tree Indian restaurant, which is a combination you either already understand or you've never lived in a village. The White Swan, practically next door, does real ales including Wainwright's. You could, in theory, visit all three in an afternoon. Whether that's advisable depends on your relationship with eight-ale freehouse pubs.
The village sits on slightly raised ground in the Hinckley and Bosworth district, about fifteen miles from Leicester and three from Hinckley. The landscape is gently undulating farmland — the kind of countryside that doesn't photograph dramatically but is extremely pleasant to walk through on a Tuesday morning when you've nowhere particular to be.
The Ashby Canal runs along one side of the village and makes for easy, flat walking or cycling along the towpath. This stretch is lock-free, so the narrowboats drift past at a pace that makes the walkers look hurried. Anglers line the banks. It is not exciting. That is the point.
For something with more historical weight, a heritage trail links the village to Crown Hill, a modest rise overlooking the surrounding fields where, on 22 August 1485, Henry Tudor was informally crowned King of England. A circlet was reportedly retrieved from a nearby thorn bush and placed on his head. He had just defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth, fought about three miles away, ending the Wars of the Roses and starting the Tudor dynasty. Stoke Golding calls itself the "Birthplace of the Tudor Dynasty" on the strength of this, and it's hard to argue. The Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre is a manageable three-mile walk if you want to make a half-day of it.
St Margaret of Antioch is the church, and it is considerably more building than you'd expect. Grade I listed, dating from the thirteenth century, it was refashioned around 1290 to 1340. Pevsner called it "one of the loveliest churches in Leicestershire." The fourteenth-century arcade between the nave and south aisle he described as being treated "with a lavishness worthy of a cathedral." The octagonal font, circa 1330, has carved saints and heraldic panels. Look at the window sills — the grooves cut into the stone are said to have been made by soldiers sharpening their weapons the night before Bosworth. Villagers reportedly climbed the church battlements to watch the battle itself.
There's an hourly bus to Nuneaton and Hinckley, though not on Sundays, and the A5 is close by. No railway station.
In 1930, someone opened a greyhound racing track in the village. It did not last. The church, five and a half centuries older, is still there.
