The Black Swan, Chesterfield

It's good to see this pub has opened again, but it's up against stiff competition from the two in the village and others nearby. We popped in as part of a crawl of six pubs, and unfortunately this was the least impressive. It's a lovely old stone building, and the main bar is not the typical black beamed affair that so many pubs of this age go in for, having instead been painted off-white or possibly mushroom, which gives a pleasant airy feel to the low ceilinged room. On the bar, two banks of three hand pumps, but there was only one beer available this busy Sunday lunchtime: Castle Rock Harvest Pale. Another pump had an Abbot clip turned around. It was busy enough here, mostly with lager drinkers watching the football on a large TV screen, and there was some disco equipment at the opposite end, presumably left over from the night before. We enjoyed our brief visit here, but if this was the only pub in the village, Ashover would not be the destination that it is.