Yoxall

At the village inn

The Golden Cup stands on Main Street opposite the parish church, its frontage dressed in floral displays for much of the year. The public house is probably late 18th century, with 19th-century alterations.

Inside there's an L-shaped dining lounge with a beamed ceiling, and a plainer public bar with a pool table and TVs. The toilets have colourful classical-themed murals on the walls.

Food is home-cooked, with fish and chips, soup and traditional Sunday roasts. Staff and regulars offer a warm welcome.

Garden stops and Staffordshire provisions

The beer garden has a patio, a lawn with picnic tables, a play area, and a playing field behind. Dogs are welcome in the public bar, there's a real fire, crib and darts, and Marston's Pedigree is the regular ale. Six of the rooms are en-suite lets, and there's space out back for caravans and motorhomes.

For food to take home, Paul Shum's butcher shop and deli sit at Woodmill Farm, with Staffordshire and Derbyshire produce, charcuterie, cheeses, lasagnes and pies. Green Door Bakery supplies bread and cakes, while the Veg Barn supplies fruit and vegetables; a fishmonger is part of the courtyard offer.

From river paths to parish stone

Starting at Goose Green, the roughly three-mile River Swarbourn circular walk passes carved wooden creatures — a wooden crocodile beside one stile — and a bench for a picnic stop. The National Forest Way's twelfth stage follows the river towards the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas, about five miles.

Cross the road from the pub and you're at St Peter's, Grade II* listed. The round-headed south doorway dates to around 1200, and the tower is Perpendicular; the church was largely rebuilt and restored between 1865 and 1868 by the architect Henry Woodyer.

Tombs and village legends

Inside is an alabaster tomb to Humphrey Welles, who died in 1565, and a tomb to Admiral Henry Meynell by the sculptor Baron Marochetti.

Local legend holds that horses refuse to pass a spot on the outskirts where a boy's skeleton was found — the blacksmith's apprentice, buried outside consecrated ground after his master's ill-treatment drove him to suicide. George Walton, father of Izaak Walton, lived here too, and Reeve End Cottage still holds the timber frame of a 14th-century aisled-hall house, reputedly the only one in Staffordshire.

Arriving in Yoxall

There's no railway station — the nearest is Lichfield Trent Valley, eight miles south. Diamond Bus route 12 runs Burton-on-Trent to Lichfield via Yoxall, and the village sits on the A515 near the B5016 junction.