The Eyre Arms, Calver

Yesterday, I ate lunch with my family at this pub in Calver Sough, Derbyshire. It's a popular place, nestling under the towering gritstone heights of Froggatt and Calver Edges.

The pub is named after the Eyre family, who originally came to Britain with William the Conqueror in 1066 and, by the time Edward I came to the throne in 1239, had settled in the small village of Hope, north Derbyshire.

By medieval times, the family were Lords of a number of manors in Derbyshire and in Tudor England they held catholic enclaves at Hassop, Hope, Chesterfield and Hathersage. It was the Eyre family who were responsible for the building of St Michael & All Angels at Hathersage, after Sir Robert returned from the battle of Agincourt around 1381, and his house, North Lees Hall was the inspiration for Charlotte Bronte's Thornfield in the novel Jane Eyre.

During Elizabethan times, an Eyre was even High Sheriff of Derbyshire. 

But it is at Hassop, three miles south of Calver, where the Eyres are most remembered, especially in the magnificent Hassop Hall, now a high quality hotel and restaurant, I have eaten there once, on a very special occasion, but today, we were happy to be at the pub.