Why people love the Tan Hill Inn, Britain’s highest pub

And its reputation stretches far beyond the Yorkshire Dales that surround it.

A pub with mining in its bones

The building dates back to the 17th century, when it served as a hostelry for workers digging the local coal pits – a history reflected in its earlier name, The Kings Pit.

Some accounts trace mining activity here back even further, potentially to the 12th century, when the inferior-quality coal was worked before the pits closed and the surrounding miners’ cottages were demolished, leaving the pub standing alone on the fell.

That isolation, once a byproduct of industrial decline, is now the pub’s entire identity: its closest neighbours are more than four miles away, and the nearest town is over ten.

(Image: Supplied)

Genuinely off the grid

The Tan Hill generates its own electricity and draws water from a spring discovered by a water diviner using hazel twigs — everything else, including fuel for the generator, has to be physically brought “up the hill”.

It sits almost exactly at the halfway point of the Pennine Way, Britain’s longest inland footpath, which is why walkers, cyclists and “van life” travellers treat it as a genuine bucket-list stop rather than just a passing pub.

(Image: Supplied)

The night the world was watching

Tan Hill’s global reputation was cemented in late November 2021, when Storm Arwen cut power lines and blocked the only road in, trapping a Friday-night crowd who’d come for an Oasis tribute band for an unplanned three-day lock-in.

Stranded guests swapped phone numbers and made plans to reunite the following year, and the story was picked up by media worldwide — turning a snowed-in pub in the Dales into an unlikely global talking point.

It’s happened again since: 23 guests and staff, including a four-year-old child, were stranded for five days during a snow storm in early 2025.

More than just a drink

Tan Hill was the first pub in the country to be licensed for wedding ceremonies, and it hosts the Tan Hill Swaledale Sheep Show every May, a tradition which has been going for more than 70 years.

It holds a place in CAMRA’s Good Beer Guide for its selection of real ales, and its live music nights – an open mic on Thursdays, full gigs in the on-site barn at weekends — have made it as much a cultural fixture as a wayside stop.

Even its name has deep roots: Tan Hill is believed to derive from the Celtic “Tan Heol,” or “hill of fire,” referring to beacon pyres once lit here to mark the solstice.