Some villages are named appropriately. Tynemouth, for example, could exist nowhere else; Wideopen was not so long ago surrounded by fields and No Place would be unfairly overlooked were it not for the fabled Beamish Mary Inn.

Similarly, Hedley on the Hill in Northumberland couldn't be twinned with Low Newton or Clara Vale; it thoroughly merits its capital H, reached via an ear-popping, gear-straining clamber from Stocksfield. The route is not so much steep as steeeeeep - and if Hedley on the Hill had a club it would be called the Mile-High.

Fortunately, the village has a pub, The Feathers Inn, a tidy, stone-walled, traditional, community gathering-place which, this weekend, hosts a number of Easter activities including the legendary annual barrel race.

Fancy-costumed teams of three will each transport an empty 18-gallon aluminium cask one-and-a-half miles up and across the fields from New Ridley Road. Winners get a full one to themselves. They deserve it, it's quite possibly the most demanding thing that can happen to a body, and that includes sessions in Mile-High Clubs.

This year is slightly different, however. New owners Rhian Cradock and Helen Greer have been in place since only Monday, having taken over from Marina Atkinson, licensee for the past 27 years. The young couple had spent a while looking at pubs to pull them back to the North-East, but when they saw The Feathers, they thought, "this is it".

"The sale just went through this week," says Rhian, who is originally from Burnopfield in Derwentside. "I've been working in posh restaurants in London for the past two years - I was senior sous chef at the National Portrait Gallery and chef at Chez Bruce, which has several times been voted London's best restaurant. We wanted to move back to the North-East and I wanted to cook traditional North-East food."

Helen worked in neurophysiology and clinical physiology at Great Ormond Street Hospital and they - quite rightly - met in a restaurant. Rhian had completed a degree in archaeology before swapping the trowel for the trivet.

"I worked with Terry Laybourne for work experience," he says. "You could say I got the bug at 21 Queen Street. Then I worked at Don Vito's in Newcastle for the di Giorgi family."

Rhian's mother Jyll interrupts from her sleeves-up-do-anything-just-ask-that's-what-mums-are-for role. She says: "He's always been cooking and always wanted his own business. He used to make panettone and pork pies in the sixth form then sell them to the teachers."

The couple are really starting at the deep end; a beer festival this weekend will feature 25 ales from all over the country to supplement the bar's Hadrian & Border Tyneside Blonde (3.9% alcohol by volume), Northumberland Holy Island (3.8% ABV), Big Lamp Bitter (3.9% ABV) and a regular from the emphatic Mordue range.

An impressive wine list is tinged with the Michelin-starred, French-leaning Chez Bruce influence, featuring some very good Bordeaux not normally seen in pubs.

"The Feathers is a beautiful place, full of character," says Helen. "We're very excited and keen to do a lot with it; it's a traditional pub open all day and it will be open for morning coffees and afternoon teas as well. Eventually we'll offer bed and breakfast.

"We're using all local suppliers - 60-plus - and have been out to see them, some fantastic people. It's been hard work. Wheelbirks ice cream, for example, comes from just down the road and it's the only thing we don't make ourselves. Our eggs come from Sunny Hill Farm at Belford and our beef from the Highland Cattle Centre at Stocksfield.

"We've even got our own special blend of coffee made up at Pumphreys and we'll offer a decent range. We're planning on getting them here to talk to our customers about what they do.

"We'll have a wine club, too. There's a lot of activity at the pub anyway, with the leek club and dominoes."

Internally, The Feathers' three rooms have been stripped back to expose stone walls, though in places, some thick plastering has been overlayed - it has to be said - by someone with a worrying sense of colour. There seems to be open fires everywhere, their logs tinkling away in soporific fashion.

Old pictures show long-gone locals and village scenes from another era. A fox's head snarls from on high. It's a one-time drovers' inn that was also a refresher for carriers lugging lead ore from the mines at Allendale to Dunston Staithes.

The views over to Hexham and beyond are stirring. It's a real community pub with, as Rhian and Helen discovered for themselves, a fine feel to it. And, it will seem like heaven to Easter Monday's barrel-racers.

"They take it very seriously," says Rhian. "You have to be really fit and they seem to be very eager for me to join in."

The winners will get special yellow T-shirts - Tour de France-style - and the barrel of beer. The T-shirt, Helen insists, is the more coveted prize.

"We'll also have egg jarping. That's another very serious competition. Apparently, grown men take part and you can hear a pin drop while it's going on. All events are for charity.

"We've done our homework, but this is what Rhian loves doing most - he's passionate about the flavour of food and about using the best quality he can get."

Rhian says some of the ingredients he has sourced locally "have just blown me away".

"We get wild mussels from Steve Uldale at Holy Island. He picks them on a Wednesday and delivers on a Thursday. They taste amazing. Other suppliers are the Bywell Smokery and we get flour for our bread from Gilchesters Organics at Stamfordham.

"We're not going to demand, say, 50 eight-ounce fillet steaks every Monday, that's not our style - and you can't do that with specialist producers, anyway. We'll take what they have available at that time and what's in season and what's best. If they haven't got it, we can't put it on."

He has obviously caught our glimpse of surprise at the plastered surface hue.

"Once we get settled in we'll freshen the paintwork up a bit, but that's all it needs," he says. "Maybe that fox's head can go." The animal's odd expression suggests it expired in a moment of exhilaration. A reasonable assumption would place its last breath at The Feathers Inn - though there's always the Mile-High Club.

* The Feathers Inn, Hedley on the Hill, Stocksfield, Northumberland, (01661) 843607. The beer festival runs all weekend with the barrel race starting at 12.30pm on Easter Monday.

alastair.gilmour@ncjmedia.co.uk