It is a classic old English inn. It stands on the old Great North Road where Mrs Paulet originally made the world famous Stilton cheese. She supplied the then proprietor, Cooper Thornhill, of the Bell Inn from the 1730s and he sold it at half a crown a pound. In 1722, Daniel Defoe stayed here and commented on the fulsome flavour of the cheese. There have been reports of a ghostly horse with rider galloping through the village late at night said to be the ubiquitous Dick Turpin. There have been sightings over the years of the ghost of another equestrian haunting at the Bell Inn. Reports maintain this to have been a traveller who died here in the mid-1800s.