A tale of three pubs

The Swan at Monks Eleigh with dog!

On Wednesday evening Nick and I went to the official opening ceremony of the recently refurbished Swan Inn in Monks Eleigh.  The new owners have done a very good job, and the pub is looking good. 

The ribbon was cut by Parish Council Chairman, Don Reynolds.  He was the right man for the job since he was in fact born in the pub, which belonged to his parents, some 70 years ago.  He was able to tell us a little about its history, and, to mark the occasion he presented to the pub a picture of the premises which has been in his family since that time.

The Swan is now owned by Exclusive Inns, a company based in Cornwall.  The Group also owns the Angel at Stoke by Nayland and the Anchor at Nayland.  The Operations Manager of all three establishments, Bart Bisbal, was his usual welcoming self,  In his short speech he said that he hoped that the pub would become a ‘sitting room for the village’.  Since the interior is very welcoming, the menu enticing, and most importantly, dogs are allowed in the bar area (as in all Exclusive Inns) I am sure we will be returning very soon.

The success of the Swan, and indeed the other inns in the Exclusive portfolio is in sad contrast to two other pubs in the Division.  The Bull in Thorpe Morieux and the White Horse in Hitcham, both flourishing establishments in their time, are seeking to close their doors.    

In common with many other pubs in the UK, neither has managed to attract enough customers in recent years.  External factors have played a part:  restrictive laws on tobacco and alcohol, cheap booze from the supermarkets better drunk at home, the attractions of multimedia, have all taken their toll.  

The White Horse

However, the example of Exclusive Inns shows that a country pub can still be a viable and successful business, but it takes hard work, enthusiasm and an appetite for risk.    It is tempting in the face of adversity is to let the business run down by restricting opening hours, extinguishing the welcoming fire, and in the case of Thorpe, disguising the fact that the pub is a pub at all!  Failing to find a buyer for the 'business',  it is then possible to seek change of use to residential purposes and cash in on the financial uplift of selling the premises for conversion to a private house.  The pub is then, of course, lost forever.

The villages involved are not taking the closure of their last pub lying down.  Thorpe Morieux has registered the Bull as an asset of community value* (read their version of events in the special Thorpe Morieux page above), and representatives from Hitcham will be speaking out against the change of use application at Babergh Development Committee on Wednesday of next week.  I wish both communities luck!

Protestors outside the Bull, Thorpe Morieux

*For information on registering an asset as being of community value click here.