Pubs

“Do you want a shot?” asks Katy Sherrington from Durham, offering up a tiny glass of a pink liquid. Nobody is going anywhere at this point, so it would be rude not to accept.

On Saturday night at the Tan Hill Inn, Britain’s highest pub, the snow is falling and the crowd of about 30 people inside know they are probably stuck here for a couple of days. Throughout the place, at the northern edge of North Yorkshire, drinks are flowing and friends are being made.

Weather warnings for snow are in place across much of the UK, and the Met Office has advised the public to only make necessary journeys, with road closures, train and flight cancellations, and rural communities becoming cut off.

That is something the staff at the Tan Hill Inn, which is 528 metres (1,732ft) above sea level, are used to. The pub has a history of what people call “snow-ins” – in 2021, 61 punters who had come to watch an Oasis tribute band were trapped for three days.

So the team are well prepared. Their electric power comes from a generator and there is enough food for about a month, “but hopefully it won’t come to that” says Nicole Hayes, one of the bar staff, who has done a number of phone interviews with local and national media in the run-up to the weather warning, such is the reputation of the pub.