Tutbury

On Tuesday 22nd June 2021, I took a day off work to watch a football match that was being played that evening. In order to kill a bit of time before the game, I took the bus from Burton on Trent up to Tutbury.

My local bus operator has recently partnered with a mobile ticketing app, and so I used it to buy a day ticket. The app also shows the area where the ticket is valid, and Tutbury is right on the edge of the area. The journey took about twenty minutes. It was a spur of the moment decision to go to Tutbury, so I didn’t have a plan of where to go. I just wandered around the place, looking for inspiration.

I had a stroll down the historic High Street, past the timber framed Dog & Partridge public house which has stood there for hundreds of years. The High Street is full of independent local businesses, including the cheekily named Ye Olde Tutbury Fryer, a fish & chip shop. Presumably the guards at Tutbury Castle used to pop down there for a bag of chips on their way to work in medieval times.

My next port of call was the Church of St Mary the Virgin. The oldest part of the church dates back to the mid-1100s, including the only known alabaster arch in the country over the west door. In front of the church is a war memorial engraved with the names of local men who went to fight in the First and Second World Wars and never returned.

Tutbury is most famous for the castle ruins which tower above the village and are usually open to the public, but it was closed when I was there. At the time of writing, it is only open on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

I made my way back into the centre of Tutbury and headed up towards Hatton, on the other side of the River Dove. Near the river is a small park, Tutbury Mill Park. It has a car park, children’s play area and seating. There’s also a couple of sculptures which I spotted, one is a stone with a plaque stating that the park land was gifted to the people of Tutbury by British Gypsum in 1985, and the other is a carved sphere.