A homage to The Chequers at Ticknall, a classic country village pub

Tony Matthews has been the licensee at the Chequers for eight years after arriving almost by accident from Mablethorpe.

The ancient, classic handpumps at the Chequers Inn, Ticknall, creak as if in protest or pain as they serve pints of Bass.

They are the sort of black, stumpy pumps us older drinkers used to see a lot of. They have all but disappeared by now. However, things have a habit of not changing in the Chequers, which is a large part of its enduring appeal, and those pumps do a perfectly fine job of serving a consistently fine pint.

To visit the Chequers is to step back in time in the best possible way. Grade II listed since 1967, the 17^th century, thick-walled building on High Street in the village might easily be missed by a casual passer-by.

Inside, things revolve around an inviting central bar, off which is a tricky set of steps and a low beam down to the cellar, the sort built when most people were not as tall as they are today.

There’s a large inglenook fireplace and nooks and crannies with seats in them. A small, tall pew is 200 years old. It’s in the licensee’s contract that the pew remains unchanged.

Classic old handpumps dispense Draught Bass at the Chequers. They may creak but they get the job done just fine.

There are separate rooms off the main bar, functional but comfortable. The Chequers is dog friendly throughout, as any country pub should be.

There is a theory, too, that the pub’s two entrances, front and back, once meant that the farmers went in one door and the “posher” element from the village in the other, keeping to their own ends of the pub. Everyone seems to mingle these days, though.

And the pub does not ignore the modern world. Much of its power comes from solar panels at the back of the premises, while there are unobtrusive TVs in each room, selectively showing sport. A Six Nations rugby weekend is always busy.  

You could miss the 17th century Chequers from the road if you were a casual visitor passing through Ticknall.

It is six, racing towards six and a half, years since I wrote about the Chequers for my Derby Telegraph beer column. Last week, licensee Tony Matthews told me, with kindness and sincerity, that the article “put me on the map.” It’s with modesty, too, because he had already put himself on the map to a great extent without my help, having already been there two years when I called in back then.

You would expect a pub like the Chequers to abound with stories and Tony’s is one of them. Prior to being run for 30 years by Dennis Hylton, the pub had been owned by Showaddywaddy drummer Malcolm Allured.

Businessman Philip Hulse, who grew up in the village, bought the pub where his grandad had taken him for his first pint. Basically, his instruction was for nothing to change.

Denise Rotstein provides a smile and a warm welcome which embodies the pub when she's behind the bar.

Tony had been running a beach bar in Mablethorpe (all year round, because local taxi drivers used it in winter) and wanted to move to Tickhill, near Doncaster, to be closer to his wife’s family.

“I saw the Chequers on the internet. Ticknall came up in the search by mistake!” Tony told me.

It proved to be a happy mistake and Tony prevailed over 81 other applicants to take over from Dennis. He jokes now: “I was the shortest, the only one who could carry a barrel down that cellar!”

Tony comes over as a born licensee but he has a serious theory about how his grounding at the beach bar helped him fit in when he came to the pub.

With a low ceiling waiting to catch out the unwary, the cellar at the Chequers is typical of a building this age.

“Having a bar at the seaside, every customer is from somewhere else,” he says. “It’s all about talking to them, linking them up, getting them talking to each other. It’s the same in a pub and it was for me, coming to live in a village I’d never been to before. The people make the pub, I just point them in the right direction.”

Bits and bobs do evolve at the Chequers. New ladies’ loos are on the way and another aim is to bring an outbuilding into use for events like beer festivals, while the marquee at the end of the long garden has hosted parties and concerts, not least two triumphant gigs by American singer-songwriter Annie Keating which I was proud to help put on.

The fundamentals won’t change, though, and there is absolutely no reason why they should. The Chequers is an absolute gem and notably appeals to all ages.

• Public transport? Roughly hourly number 2 Arriva buses from Derby to Swadlincote drop off and pick up right outside the pub.