14 March 2011

Neil Sowerby February’s a particularly morose month. Why else would I suddenly check out the will I’d penned two decades ago? Still gathering dust at local solicitors Clog and Billycock? Yes... and I’m still worth just as little, dead or alive. Actually the partnership’s called Greenroyd and Grimbly, with a new generation Grimbly in the hot seat apparently. And the Clog and Billycock is something quite different – a hugely popular hilltop gastropub designed to dispel all feelings of mortality.

It’s my favourite among Nigel Haworth’s Ribble Valley Inns and an easy hour’s drive via the M61 from Manchester. We made it as March arrived, allowing us a pre-lunch ramble among the ancient trees of adjacent Billinge Wood. Very hobbit. The inn’s folksy name is not some modern marketing invention, either. Originally, the Bay Horse, its name morphed to salute the sartorial tendencies of an early 20th century landlord who sported clogs and a billycock (a round brimmed felt hat akin to a bowler, could be next big thing in the Northern Quarter).

The present owners have resisted the temptation to dub it “The Goosnargh Chicken and Kirkham’s Cheeseâ€?, but you get my drift, it is that kind of establishment. It’s got sourced and sustainable hand-carved all over it. Local “food heroesâ€? gaze down from pastel walls daring you to disparage the root vegetables they have hewn from the Bleasdale Fells or dismiss the rare-breeds they have suckled solely with your belly pork portion in mind. Old Catholic Lancashire liked to commemorate martyrs butchered for their faith. Today’s rural descendants proselytise pilgrimages based on gastronomy.

And from the moment Haworth and his team at Michelin-starred Northcote near Whalley launched their first Ribble Valley Inn, the Three Fishes at Mitton, six years ago, they have been at the centre of this crusade to put the north west on the culinary map.

All subtly done, mind. It doesn’t have to be all trotters and tripe (the Clog would be hard-pressed, though, to better current Robert Owen Brown fave at the Mark Addy, Madeira tripe!). Still a platter seems de rigueur. Elm wood, the hobbit’s choix de bois. But which platter? The meaty, cheesy one with piccalilli pungency or the one sourced from seafront and smokehouse.

My companionable chauffeuse, allowed to choose, opted for the latter platter. It consisted of: “Local Seafood Port of Lancaster Beech & Juniper Smoked Salmon (the pick), Seawater Prawns, Hot Smoked Trout, Potted Morecambe Bay Shrimps, Smoked Mackerel Pâté, Pickled Cucumber, Beetroot Relish, Salted Yellow Beet, Horseradish Cream, Homemade Breadâ€?. It’s quite a deli assembly, lacking the verve of fresh seafood platters, but £14.50’s a good price for two to share. I insisted on a veggie side of Salt Baked Hesketh Bank Beets,Winter Herbs & Salad Leaves, Shallot Dressing (£4.50), which offered perky, well-dressed red and yellow exemplars of beetitude.

The cask beer line-up was less perky. Thwaites’ range – what a dull bunch. The Ribble Valley Inns obviously have a tie-in with the local Blackburn brewery. I can understand their loyalty to Reg Johnson’s Goosnargh chickens, Ascroft’s for the beetroot and other stalwart suppliers, but when I’m reduced to thinking “Well, maybe a half of Wainwright, that’s a bit steep!â€? So Allegrini Valpolicella it was, from hillside way south of Pendle. For £25 ample, slightly baked red berry fruit with just enough acidity to make it food-friendly.

It was very friendly towards my irresistible Forest of Bowland Steak & Kidney Pudding, Mash Potato, Roasted Root Vegetables, Red Wine Sauce. The suet crust was daintier than you find at our own Sam’s Chophouse, the filling, too, without sacrificing the unctuous richness (£13.50). Why on earth we had ordered sides of cauliflower cheese and buttered cabbage and wilted spinach, I really don’t know.

My hobbit companion’s Heather Reared Lonk Lamb Lancashire Hotpot (£10.50) – a Haworth signature dish – was accompanied by the European red cabbage mountain. Again a delicate, ungreasy expression of a classic Lancashire dish. Lovely, just like my spot-on seasonal pud of rhubarb and apple crumble with a mini-jug of custard (£5.50), which banished memories of a clumsy impostor of the same dish I’d left on the plate in Bath a week before.

Hobbit’s vanilla milk and choc chip ice-cream was as sickly as it sounds, the one jarring note in a lunch that majored in Old Lancashire Comfort Zone with surprising touches of cheffy delicacy. Back in the days when it was a drinking haven for me as a Blackburn teen, a pie or crisps was all you could hope for at the Clog, though the Thwaites did taste better then. You never forget those pubs where as a spotty, callow kid you tried to bluff your way to that first gulp of the bitter stuff. ‘A tankard of your finest ale, mine host,’’ your voice straining for depth. ‘‘Out, son.’’

The Clog & Billycock, Billinge End Road, Pleasington, Blackburn, Lancashire BB2 6QB. (01254 201163 www.theclogandbillycock.com/).