IT could hardly have been a better evening to wander along the back roads to The Fox House, an attractive hostelry that has seen many changes in my time.

The August sunshine had attracted many pub-goers and the sizeable car park was well filled that Friday evening.

The Fox House Inn and restaurant straddles the West/South Yorkshire boundary. It has a Holmfirth address but is actually in the Barnsley metropolitan district, although it borders on Hade Edge. As a result it attracts custom from the Barnsley and Penistone areas as well as from Holmfirth and Huddersfield.

The building has expanded by degrees over the years and is now an impressive development. The latest extension has seen the building of a large function area wing at the back of the original premises.

The Fox House was originally a working smallholding, which was then granted a licence to sell beers and porter (no spirits). The pub had polished stone floors with a tap room to the right of the corridor entrance with wooden church pews and wood and wrought iron tables. There was also a parlour through the door to the left.

The beer was dispensed through a small serving hatch at the end of corridor, poured into glasses from jugs filled from a barrel underneath.

In the parlour was a weathered sit-up-and-beg piano where singalong sessions were help.

My dad had a friend who had an enviable gift for piano playing. Bill couldn’t read music, but he had an incredible ‘musical ear’. You could sing him a tune and he’d pick it up and play it. In the manner of the Brooke Bond PG Tips Mr Shifter TV tea ad: “Dad, do you know the piano’s on my foot?”

“You hum it son, Bill would play it.”

Bill proved popular with the locals who used to join in his impromptu Friday/Saturday night recitals with gusto.

The Fox House is now barely recognisable from those good old days, but the changes have been subtlety done. People were eating in the bar areas, but we opted to use the expansive dining area to the right of the bar. We were attended to by James, a personable young waiter for whom nothing seemed too much trouble.

James directed us to the mid-week a la carte menu served in the restaurant from Monday to Fridays. It made impressive reading.

Carol chose the garlic and white wine mushrooms topped with stilton (£4.95). This starter dish came with Black Forest ham, but she did not want to take up this option. No problem, James sorted this out with the chef and all was in order. Rich creamy sauce and tasty chunks of blue stilton, she loved it. For my starter I went for the hot oak smoked peppered mackerel with chive and lemon butter (£5.25). It was an inspired choice, two large fillets of succulent fish, crisp on the outside served with a delicious light, piquant sauce and homemade brown bread. The portions of both of our starters were hugely generous.

Carol asked about the fish dishes, and again James came up trumps advising us of the various choices and chef special sauces available. As it turned out she stuck to the menu and ordered the honey and ginger glazed salmon with watercress for her main course (£7.95). I couldn’t resist the sound of the garlic chicken, cooked with white wine topped with crispy smoked bacon and leek (£7.45). As with the starters, we were both delighted with the mains.

My chicken was presented as a culinary work of art – two sizeable pieces of moist, tender chicken breast and thigh garnished with a large helping of bacon and leek in light crispy batter, imaginatively arranged with the chicken in a basket weave effect. The flavours were delicately balanced and the dish worked a treat. Carol was equally impressed with her salmon fillet “cooked to perfection”.

The dishes came with lavish servings of seasonal vegetables, crisp with a bite, done to a tee. We went for the new potatoes, but we could have had chef’s special chips or rice or whatever we fancied.

Carol finished with a home-made vanilla ice cream, or rather three vanilla ice creams in an enormous glass. As my mother used to say: “It’s good for the digestion.” That was her excuse.

All-in-all this was a fine meal and great value for money. The Fox House has pitched its prices just right and that is why they were doing a brisk trade that sunny Friday night.

The Fox House has extensive weekend and Sunday lunch menus with a carvery, a grill section, vegetarian options, a special kids menu, sandwiches and burgers, curries, desserts and coffee and an ‘Early Bird’ weekday lunchtime and evening menu starting at £4.95.

And the inn has just recently launched its Country Pantry, selling home-made chutneys and pickles etc. All in all The Fox House has a lot to offer.