Pub 53, Day 20 – Shepley Spitfire

By Rob

With the taste of great food still in our mouths, we headed over to the next pub on our tour. Moving from one well-heeled suburb to another, we found ourselves in Totley, one of the city’s more winsome environs. Teetering on the very edge of Sheffield’s border, this quasi-rural paradise is home to a number of pleasant-looking pubs, including the Shepley Spitfire.

The pub was built in 1978 by a Nottinghamshire brewery. Needing a name for their venture, they launched a competition to find the best suggestion. The winner was a man called Seymour Shepley, who lived in the nearby Woodthorpe Hall.

The Shepley family arrived in the area back in 1926, bringing with them four sons and a daughter. When war broke out in Europe, it sadly claimed the lives of three of the brothers. The third and final of these tragedies occurred in the summer of 1940 when Douglas Shepley, a Spitfire pilot in 152 Squadron, was shot down over the English Channel. His body was never recovered.

After losing so much, the grieving family decided to do something positive, and so they began raising money to purchase a new Spitfire. The people of north Derbyshire and South Yorkshire pitched in, throwing a whole host of different fundraising events. Within 15 weeks the money had been raised and a new plane, aptly named Shepley, joined the ranks of the RAF.

So it was that, decades later, when the only surviving son – Seymour – suggested naming the pub in recognition of this extraordinary story, the owners found their winner.

Fast-forward another handful of decades and, in the first century of the next millennium, two young adventurers clambered out onto the pavement and headed for the entrance.

Once inside the pub, we were a little surprised by what we found. For whatever reason, we’d been expecting a cosy little countryside taproom with a wood-beam roof. Instead, we walked into a very modern, light and airy establishment. In truth, it looked more like a restaurant than a public house.

That’s not to say that it wasn’t nice; it was simply lacking in character. The other thing it was lacking in was customers, as the spacious interior was made even more spacious by the fact that the pub was, unbelievably, almost empty. While the Coach & Horses and The Castle Inn had gone to great lengths to offer food and fun for the local beer festival, the Shepley Spitfire had made absolutely zero effort.

At the bar, we observed that the pub was selling a beer called Shepley Spitfire. Knowing that we were unlikely to see this particular pint anywhere else, we opted for one each.

As the barman began to pour our drinks, we had one of those moments in which we both intuitively knew, right then, just what we had to do. It was another wordless conversation, played out only by our eyes. But in order to make sure that we were on the same page, we then had the discussion using our mouths.

After a brief chat, it was decided that a new regulation had just made its way into the Pubquest rulebook:

The pint-with-the-same-name-as-the-pub rule!

“Wherever a public house is offering an alcoholic beverage that is clearly named after the pub in which it is being provided, then all permanent members of Sheffield Pubquest are required, by statute, to purchase that product and consume it in its entirety.”

Secure in the knowledge that our habit of impulsively legislating would make us terrible politicians, we headed to the beer garden to enjoy the last few hours of sunshine.

Naturally, the last few hours of sunshine appeared to be on fast-forward and we soon found ourselves grumbling about the sudden drop in temperature. After just ten minutes of outdoor living, we retreated to the pool table.

Racing through three games on the baize, Andy won the day by two frames to one. We finished our pints of Shepley Spitfire, which was surprisingly refreshing, and headed off to re-join the rest of my family.

Sadly, the next pub we visited was, much like the Coach & Horses, beyond the boundaries of our beloved city and so it won’t feature on this blog. Maybe when we’ve written about every pub in Sheffield we can start to worry about those in places like Dronfield. However, when that time comes I suspect there will be other things for us to worry about, such as our grandchildren.

Shepley Spitfire pool score: Andy 2-1 Rob

Pubquest pool score: Andy 37-27 Rob

Pub: Shepley Spitfire (Mickley Lane, S17 4HE)
Pint: Shepley Spitfire 
Brewery: Shepley Spitfire (are you sensing a pattern?)
Rating: 5/10

NEXT UP: Childhood traumas, at The Roebuck...