Canal, church and village pubs
Clayworth
Walk beside the Chesterfield Canal, see Phoebe Anna Traquair's chancel murals at St Peter's, then settle into one of Clayworth's pubs.
- Best for
- Canal walking and Arts and Crafts murals
- Give it
- A one-hour village loop or a 2.5-mile canal circuit
- Don't miss
- Traquair's murals on all four chancel walls
The Fox verdict
A canal village with an exceptional church interior
Clayworth pairs easy canal walking with a Grade I church, three pubs and unusually detailed social history.
The 46-mile Cuckoo Way runs through Clayworth, while a 2.5-mile circular walk follows the towpath from Clayworth Top Bridge. At St Peter's, Phoebe Anna Traquair's murals cover all four chancel walls in vibrant colour and substantial gilding.
Where to go
Places in Clayworth
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesThe Brewers Arms
An 18th-century traditional village pub with a patio garden, two changing real ales and a collection of water jugs used for spirits behind the bar.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 75 minutes
- Locality
- Town Street
- Access
- Dog friendly.
The Blacksmiths
A gastro pub with letting rooms, a real fire, a garden, a permanent Timothy Taylor Landlord and rotating guest ales.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 75 minutes
- Locality
- Town Street
- Access
- Contact the pub directly about access for dogs.
Chesterfield Canal
At Clayworth, an easy signposted circuit follows the Chesterfield Canal towpath from Clayworth Top Bridge past Otter's Bridge towards Gray's Bridge, with moored narrowboats and water birds along the route.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 2 hours
- Locality
- Chesterfield Canal through Clayworth
Walks & outdoors
1 placeIdle Valley Nature Reserve
A trail, lake and forest area in the wider area around Clayworth.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 2 hours
- Locality
- In the wider area
History & heritage
2 placesSt Peter's Church
A Grade I church of Norman origin whose chancel is covered on all four walls by Phoebe Anna Traquair's 1904-05 murals, with biblical scenes, vibrant colour and substantial gilding.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- Clayworth
Mattersey Priory
English Heritage-managed ruins of a Gilbertine priory on the River Idle.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- On the River Idle
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Three ways to explore Clayworth
Signature outings
Traquair's gilded murals
Phoebe Anna Traquair's 1904-05 murals cover all four chancel walls with biblical scenes, vibrant colour and substantial gilding.
Mattersey's Gilbertine ruins
See the English Heritage-managed ruins of a Gilbertine priory on the River Idle.
Trails at Idle Valley
Follow trails through the lake and forest area of Idle Valley Nature Reserve.
The village story
Clayworth Village Guide
Pubs beside the canal, a church filled with Traquair murals and a village recorded from Domesday onwards.
Three pubs and the canal
Behind the bar at The Brewers Arms is a large collection of water jugs, kept for spirits rather than water, the sort of detail you only notice once someone points it out. The pub is an 18th-century building on Town Street, a few yards from the Chesterfield Canal, close enough to watch narrowboats go by from the patio garden while you drink. Richard and Gina Hadfield run it, closed Mondays except bank holidays, dogs welcome, with two changing real ales, typically Adnams Southwold Bitter and Timothy Taylor Landlord.
Two more pubs sit further along Town Street. The Blacksmiths reopened in July 2024 under new management, with three letting rooms upstairs, a real fire, and a garden that gets praised almost as often as the food; guest ales including Welbeck Abbey rotate alongside a permanent Timothy Taylor Landlord, and dogs are allowed until 5.30pm. The Sun Inn, on the corner of Willingham Road, has an open fire pit in its garden and small plates alongside hearty mains — "a lovely welcoming pub with lovely food and a kind boss and workers," in one reviewer's words.
The canal takes over
Clayworth doesn't have a shop of its own. What it has instead is the canal.
The Chesterfield Canal opened in 1777 and curls round the village on its way from Chesterfield to West Stockwith, part of a 46-mile route known as the Cuckoo Way. A signposted circular walk of about two and a half miles starts at Clayworth Top Bridge, follows the towpath past Otter's Bridge to Gray's Bridge, and takes in moored narrowboats, ducks and moorhen. A shorter version, closer to an hour, loops the village and takes in the church too.
St Peter's and the Traquair murals
The church is St Peter's, Grade I listed, Norman in origin with later medieval additions. Pevsner found the 13th-century nave arcades "very weird" — the piers and arches don't appear to relate to each other, a mismatch nobody has fully explained.
The real reason to go inside is the chancel, where all four walls are covered in murals painted in 1904-05 by Phoebe Anna Traquair, Scotland's first professional female artist — one of only two murals by her in England, and the largest single artwork in the east of England. Lady D'Arcy Godolphin Osborne commissioned it to mark her son Captain Joseph Laycock's safe return from the Boer War; the scenes include the Annunciation, the Last Supper and Christ in Gethsemane, thick with gilding.
From Domesday to the Rector's Book
The Domesday surveyors valued the whole place at £1 6s 2d.
Clayworth's other claim to fame is a piece of paper. The Rector's Book, 62 parchment leaves kept by Rev. William Sampson between 1676 and 1701, includes two full household listings taken twelve years apart, showing that something like half the village had moved on in that time — figures the historian Peter Laslett later used in "The World We Have Lost," his 1965 study of pre-industrial England.
Nearby connections and back to the water
Retford, with the nearest railway station, is six miles away, and the 97 bus runs to Gainsborough roughly every two hours, Monday to Saturday. Mattersey Priory, a ruined Gilbertine priory on the River Idle, is a short drive, and Wiseton, the next village along, has its own hall — once home to the Laycock family, the same family commemorated in the murals at St Peter's.
Back at the Brewers Arms, none of that troubles the dogs on the patio. They're watching the water for boats.
Stay around Nottinghamshire
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around Nottinghamshire, linked directly to their property pages.
Nottingham
Camila's Penthouse Central Stay with Balcony
- Sleeps 16
- 5 bedrooms
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Anna's Central Stay
- Sleeps 16
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Blair's Central Stay
- Sleeps 16
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Melissa's Central Stay
- Sleeps 13
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Stephanie's Central Stay
- Sleeps 6
- 2 bedrooms
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 Brewers Arms — brewersarmsclayworth.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- The Blacksmiths — blacksmithsclayworth.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- St Peter's Church — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Chesterfield Canal — canalrivertrust.org.uk national body or asset manager
- Mattersey Priory — english-heritage.org.uk national body or asset manager
- Idle Valley Nature Reserve — nottinghamshirewildlife.org other published source