Heads above water: How The Smithfield and The Exeter Arms are coping with Derby's flood defence works

I KILLED two birds with one stone one night last week and, hopefully, with this column too.

I went and bought a copy of the new Good Beer Guide and made a point of getting to the Exeter Arms and the Smithfield Ale House (both pubs are of course in it).

A bit of my custom is a drop in the ocean for these two brilliant Derby pubs, of course. I also get that I’m a bit late to the party in publicising their current plight. But every little helps, according to the well-known advertising campaign.

Bollards, closure signs - but access if you know how to find it for the Exeter Arms.

If you’re not aware, the Smithfield and the Exeter are the two pubs most drastically affected by the current flood defence works around the city.

Not for a second is anyone suggesting the flood works are not needed but they are making things very difficult indeed for the pubs.

Both have had plenty to say on social media on the subject but unless you actually see the scale of the work and the disruption with your own eyes, it’s hard to comprehend.

It is complex, huge and, in fact, brilliant in its execution.

But with it come relentless road closures, pavement closures and bridge closures in the area and these have often appeared so random that customers can’t get to the pubs the same way from one day to the next, by road or foot.

Work on this phase began in May 2025 and it was spring this year when the machinery crept right up to the Smithfield.

The Smithfield Alehouse by night last week. Beyond this point is just a building sit for now.

Licensee Emily Bowler has been both full of admiration for the work and totally exasperated by the disruption in regular social media updates with the hashtag #pubonabuildingsite.

Here’s an extract from what she wrote in March:

“We are counting on you all to support us through what will be a very difficult year.

“Firstly, we are not closing, we have never been closing and no one has ever even suggested that we close. We will stay open throughout every step of the process…

“The piling rig in our location is a very special piece of equipment brought here from China called a Gyropress. Noise and vibration levels are surprisingly low and we’re quite privileged to have such a special piece of technology on site.

“This is partly for your comfort and partly to make sure your pub doesn’t fall into the river. Rather than driving piles into the bed rock it climbs over the top of them and screws each one down into place. They have roughly 100 of these to insert along our boundary…

“The wall that will eventually be built after piling will be approximately two  metres high with glass panels in the beer garden.

Piles in place along the river bank between the water and The Smithfield Alehouse.

“The positive side of things is that we’re all still here to get through this year with you. The same team that’s got through floods, pandemics, swarms of locust, seen your highest highs and lowest lows. So we WILL get through it as a team and hopefully as the community that we cherish. We’ve proved time and time again that you can’t keep a good pub down.”

For a while, it seemed as if the contractors would have to take over the pub’s unique beer garden through the summer and, since that’s where bands play regularly, that really would have been damaging. Thankfully that concern was averted.

Martin Roper, licensee of the Exeter, does not have the piling work close to his pub but has also been seriously affected by the road closures and confusing signage about it.

This sign's within site of the Exeter and the Royal Standard. Signage has not been particularly helpful during the current works, especially as access by road and pavement has often changed day by day.

He took the drastic step of making his own signs pointing the directions people could take to get past the works to his pub. They kept getting taken down; he kept replacing them.

"I've been trying to work out a solution with the council after the closure came into force back in April, but we've had no support," Martin told the Derby Telegraph in July.

"Since then, we've seen a significant drop in trade – maybe around 15% – but if you pair that with the roughly 15% increase in costs, that's a 30% gap.

"I understand it might not be easy for the council to negate our business rates but we need all the help we can get, particularly due to the sheer length of the closure.

"I'm doing my bit to survive and part of my bit was putting signage up that helps people try and find what is currently Derby's official pub of the year.

"They didn't consult us on the closure of Exeter Place and they didn't consult us with the few signs they have put up, most of which aren't helpful and are in the wrong place completely.

"I don't understand why nobody has come along and sat down with me and just said, 'OK, we get it. What can we do to help you?'”

The theoretical end date for this phase of the works is March next year and work is indeed continuing apace but even if they hit that deadline, it’s a long winter ahead for the two pubs.

Happily, while things are obviously not as the licensees would want, people are finding a way. Gigs, especially, at the Smithfield are still going down well and, this week, they’re having their latest “Murk Fest” – a gathering of hazy beers. That’s on now until Sunday October 4.

I ate at the Exeter. It was a Friday night and I only just got a seat as a walk-in for food, with the pub nicely busy. The food was as good as ever and there was a lovely atmosphere.

One way or another, the Smithfield and the Exeter, thanks to their resourceful licensees and loyal customers, will get through their current problems. Drop in and help them out, if you can.

*As for the Good Beer Guide, it’s another monster edition of 848 pages, which came out last week.

I’ve said before, it’s easy to criticise, but there is no other independent pub guide remotely like it. It out-lived the defunct Good Pub Guide (which pubs paid to be in) and, despite so much happening digitally these days, it continues to sell well.

This year’s has a foreword by renowned crime novelist Ian Rankin and features the Oxford Bar in Edinburgh, the haunt of both Rankin and his character John Rebus, on the cover.

*This article’s for regular reader Pete, who recently reminded me that I’ve not been writing about Derby city pubs lately. He’s right. It just happened that way. Anyway, another one next time.