Forge work and village stories
Scarrington
A compact Vale of Belvoir village with a 17-foot tower of interlocked horseshoes, a medieval church and a rare circular pinfold.
- Known for
- A 17-foot tower made from an estimated 50,000 horseshoes
- Walk
- A roughly 3.3-mile flat circular through Scarrington, Screveton and Car Colston
- Food and drink
- The nearest pubs are about 2 miles away in Aslockton and Car Colston
The Fox verdict
A tiny village with one enormous curiosity
Come for George Flinders's horseshoe monument, then add the medieval church, the Pinfold and a short country circuit.
Scarrington's strongest visit is compact but distinctive: the blacksmith's self-supporting horseshoe pile stands outside the Old Forge, the circular brick Pinfold recalls the village's agricultural past, and St John of Beverley carries medieval bells, two fonts and a Civil War story. A roughly 3.3-mile circular extends the visit through fields, lanes, quiet roads, Screveton and Car Colston.
Where to go
Places in Scarrington
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesHorseshoe Monument
George Flinders built this 17-foot, self-supporting pile from an estimated 50,000 discarded, interlocked horseshoes between June 1945 and April 1965.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 20 minutes
- Locality
- outside the Grade II listed Old Forge/Smithy
The Pinfold
A rare Grade II listed circular brick pound, about 6.1 metres in diameter, once used for impounding stray animals.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 15 minutes
- Locality
- opposite the Smithy
Car Colston–Scarrington–Car Colston Circular
A flat, easy circular of fields, lanes and quiet country roads, with a few stiles and about 183 feet of elevation gain.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: About 1–1.5 hours
- Locality
- through Car Colston, Scarrington and Screveton
- Access
- Some stretches can be overgrown, so long trousers are advised. Check current footpath status before setting out because an unsafe-bridge closure has affected part of the wider network.
Food & drink
3 placesCranmer Arms
A dog-and-walker-friendly traditional village pub with a large beer garden, play area, skittle alley and up to four cask ales.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 75 minutes
- Locality
- Aslockton, about 2 miles from Scarrington
- Access
- Food service is uncertain because a recent review said the kitchen might no longer be operating, so check ahead.
Royal Oak
A gastropub and dining pub serving dishes including steaks, salads, fish and chips and fish pie; it won the local CAMRA Pub of the Year in 2009, 2020 and 2021.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 90 minutes
- Locality
- Car Colston, about 2 miles from Scarrington
Bingham Market
Bingham's street market and farmers' market add a nearby shopping stop to a Scarrington visit.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 60 minutes
- Locality
- Bingham, 2–2.5 miles from Scarrington
History & heritage
1 placeChurch of St John of Beverley
A Grade I church with a 13th-century medieval core, three bells dated 1450, a Restoration-period font and a recovered medieval font linked by tradition to Cromwell's troops.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Around 45 minutes
- Locality
- Scarrington
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Three ways to explore Scarrington
Signature outings
Fifty thousand horseshoes
Study the self-supporting tower George Flinders assembled shoe by shoe over roughly twenty years outside the Old Forge.
Two fonts and three medieval bells
Find the Restoration-period font and the medieval font said to have become a pump trough after Cromwell's troops threw it out.
The smarter pub stop
Head to Car Colston for the Royal Oak's steaks, fish pie and other dining-pub choices after exploring Scarrington.
The village story
Scarrington Village Guide
A blacksmith's improbable monument leads into a small village of medieval bells, red brick, country paths and stories that stretch back to Domesday.
The Tower That Stayed
Outside the old forge on Main Street stands a tower of horseshoes, seventeen feet high, built shoe by interlocking shoe by the village blacksmith George Flinders, who worked the Scarrington forge for fifty-one years. He stacked discarded shoes from June 1945 to April 1965, using an estimated fifty thousand of them — self-supporting, no internal column, reckoned to weigh ten tons. It's thought to be the largest such pile in the world, and it very nearly left the country: an American collector agreed to buy it, so Nottinghamshire County Council paid off the buyer to keep it here, in 1973. Flinders kept the original sale money regardless.
That's the thing Scarrington is known for, and it's free to look at, any time you like.
Where to Eat Nearby
There's no pub in the village itself. The last one closed along with the butcher, wheelwright and shoemaker. What remains is the church, a Methodist chapel and a WI hut. For food and a pint you go two miles, to Aslockton or Car Colston.
The Cranmer Arms in Aslockton is a dog-and-walker-friendly local with a big beer garden, a play area and a skittle alley, cask ales including Black Sheep Best Bitter, food traditionally Fridays only. The Royal Oak in Car Colston is the smarter option — steaks, fish pie, Koffman fries — and has won Vale of Belvoir & Nottinghamshire CAMRA Pub of the Year three times, most recently in 2021. General shopping means Bingham, two and a half miles off, with a Thursday street market and cafes including Gilt and Cured.
Church, Pinfold and Village Detail
The church, St John of Beverley, is worth the walk regardless of what's on. Medieval at the core and restored in the 1860s, its belfry holds three bells cast in 1450. The font under the tower dates from the 1660s, but it isn't the original — that one was thrown out by Cromwell's troops and used afterwards as a pump trough, before being recovered in 1900 and set back in the south aisle. Local tradition holds that a Scarrington man who'd killed a Cromwellian soldier hid in the roof during the Civil War; restorers up there in 1867 found his stash — a cup, a saucer, a plate and a bundle of hay.
Main Street curves in a shallow crescent, red-brick cottages under pantile roofs, grassed verges instead of pavement, and cherry trees that go pink in spring. Opposite the Smithy is the Pinfold, a rare surviving circular brick pound for stray animals. A resident, Mr J. Howard, keeps free-roaming chickens around the village; there's a "slow, hens" sign near the church, and a cockerel on the churchyard wall that lets everyone know it's there.
A Short Circuit and a Long History
The circular walk to Screveton and Car Colston is a little over three miles, flat, an hour or so, passing the horseshoe pile on its way out. Aslockton station is 1.3 miles off, with trains to Nottingham; the bus runs twice a week.
Scarrington's Domesday entry calls it Scarintone, a royal possession with twenty-seven households — in the larger 40 per cent of settlements the surveyors recorded. The name derives from Anglo-Saxon for "dirty farm," which nobody here seems to have taken personally. Roy Keane lived in the village in the early nineties, while playing for Nottingham Forest, and it was during that spell that he met his future wife, Theresa.
Stay around Nottinghamshire
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.
- Horseshoe Monument — rushcliffe.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- The Pinfold — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Church of St John of Beverley — achurchnearyou.com national body or asset manager
- Car Colston–Scarrington–Car Colston Circular — ramblers.org.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Cranmer Arms — aslockton-pc.org.uk other published source
- Royal Oak — royaloakcarcolston.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Bingham Market — rushcliffe.gov.uk statutory register or public authority