The Feathers Inn is our Pub of the Year

Dec 28 2008 by Sunday Sun

MRS E and I have famously high standards. We don’t expect posh, overpriced fancy food whenever we go in search of scran.

Instead, what we hope to give you each week is a selection of the best eateries in the North where you can get good quality produce, prepared and cooked with care, accompanied by a tasty drop of booze.

And, of course, staff who provide service that makes you feel the centre of attention . . . all in surroundings that are relaxing and inviting.

Those individual ingredients combined provide a recipe for the perfect Sunday lunch experience . . . and they were all in abundance in this year’s Sunday Scrans.

We featured our six short-listed finalists last week, and today I can confirm the outright winner as The Feathers Inn at Hedley on the Hill, Northumberland.

And proprietors Helen Greer and Rhian Craddock must be getting very familiar with winning ways. Apart from my prestigious award, the pub has scooped a number of gongs since the couple took it over . . . just 18 months ago.

It has been declared Northumberland Dinning pub of the year 2008 and has just been handed the same award for 2009.

And the staff have won an award from Pub industry Bible The Publican for having the best Pub Team. The magazine also named The Feathers as its Local Food Pub of the Year 2008.

And at the Great British Pub Awards it scooped the title of Yorkshire and North East Pub of the Year, and Newcomer of the Year 2008.

To top it all off, it has been mentioned in the Michelin Eating Out in Pubs guide 2009 and the Good Food Guide 2009.

With all those accolades, Helen would be forgiven for becoming complacent about awards but that’s far from the case.

She said: “We are delighted to have won the award. Being named the Sunday Sun pub of the year means a lot as it comes from a regional paper our customers are familiar with. We have had a good year winning awards but we never expected any of them.

“When we took over the pub we had a very definite idea of how we wanted to run things and it included good quality, locally- sourced produce with excellent service. The quality of our service is something we really pride ourselves on and I think that is because we have high expectations ourselves.

“We have a very good team here and it is almost as if we are one small family. Although running a pub can be busy, we do our best to all sit down together and have a meal during the day. I think little things like that build a strong team and make work somewhere people want to come.”

Apart from concentrating on the quality of food and service, Helen, 31, and Rhian, 28, make sure the pub is a central part of the community.

Helen explained: “There aren’t any shops or village hall here so the pub is a natural meeting place. It was always central to the community before we took over and we wanted to ensure that continued.

“On Mondays we don’t serve food, so a lot of community activities take place then such as the parish council meeting. It’s all well and good attracting people from outside the area to come and dine but the locals are very important to us.”

She Who Must be Fed and I visited the pub in July when we experienced a top quality meal. We were impressed by the fact that all the produce, from the potatoes to the beef and pork and the vegetables, were locally sourced.

The food had obviously been cooked with care and there was a good selection of desserts, a fabulous choice of real ales and around 50 wines.