31-May-2008 The Times - The new breed of pubs with old fashioned hospitality
A new kind of landlord is reviving the fortunes of the traditional boozer – and rekindling community life
The Ragged Cot, Gloucestershire
It’s not the word that Ian Rayner, the owner, uses, but the driving force behind the Ragged Cot is an old-fashioned sense of hospitality, of wanting to be welcoming to all-comers. You see it in the signs as you walk in, announcing that wellies and children are welcome and that Sunday lunch will be served until 5pm. You see it in the dog baskets dotted throughout the 17th-century building, or the picnic blankets you can take out to a shady spot in the garden. It’s there again in the free quiches and biscuits put out on the bar on a Sunday night “because the kitchen’s closed and we don’t want anyone to go hungry”. And if you are staying the night, you’ll see it in the home-made fudge and nightcap menu left on your bed.
Not so long ago this was a grimy warren of rooms, famous only for the twin horrors of the pink nylon sheets in its bedrooms and the wife of a former landlord who was said to haunt the bar, but, after a three-month refit, Rayner and his business partner, Miles Johnson, have turned the Ragged Cot into the sort of pub you wish was around every country corner, with its easy mix of mellow Cotswold stone, Farrow & Ball tones, creeper-clad terraces and unpretentious menus.
“We get a chalk-and-cheese mix of customers,” says Rayner. “Our binmen come in for a pint and some bangers and mash at the end of their shift, and you might see Captain Mark and Zara Phillips at the next table [Gatcombe Park is just a mile down the road].
A lot of people wouldn’t think of putting those two social groups together, but it works. We’ve tried to create a boozer for locals, but also to draw people in with the food and rooms.”
With two pubs closing down every week, landlords have to find new ways to fill their tables. The Ragged Cot is open from breakfast, through brunch, lunch and afternoon tea to dinner. “We’re trying to create a traditional inn, like it used to be, where one place was the pub, the hotel, the tea rooms. I think people have forgotten how it was when there was some old Dorothy who ran a pub and she’d bake a Victoria sponge and put it on the bar in the afternoon,” says Rayner, who also owns the Kings Arms in Litton, Somerset, and the Kensington Arms in Redland, Bristol.
What he most certainly doesn’t want is for the Ragged Cot to be viewed as a gastropub or restaurant. “We’re a pub first and foremost. We just happen to have rooms and do nice food,” he says. “And even though we’ve done everything up, we don’t mind if people come in with dirty wellies on, or with the dogs, or let their kids clamber over the sofas. Anything goes, really.”
The head chef, Kevin Chandler, formerly of the Pear Tree in Whitley, Wiltshire, bakes his own bread, butchers his own meat, and puts the whole animal to innovative use. Bar snacks include Pig's Twigs with Mayo (long, thin sticks of pork crackling), Deep Fried Pigs’ Ears and Tartare Sauce, or Jellied Ham Hock, but you’ll also find chicken Kiev, traditional ploughman’s, and spotted dick with custard. As he and Rayner both have babies, they also plan to introduce a purée menu for young children. (“No, not puréed pig’s head,” Rayner jokes.) Cheeses come from a neighbour who is developing a washed-rind cheese made with local cider just for them.
“You can overplay the local card,” says Rayner, “Local doesn’t automatically mean good, but where we can, we do. And that’s great because, if you are giving back to the community, putting money back into the farmers’ pockets, they’ll be more appreciative of you. And that’s what it’s all about.”
The Ragged Cot, Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire (01453 884643; www.theraggedcot.co.uk). Rooms from £120
The Wellington Arms, Hampshire
Visit the Wellington Arms, and the eggs on the bar are from the chickens round the back, and you can pick up six for £1.50 while your pint is topped up.
“We’d wanted chickens from the moment we opened the pub,” says Jason King, the pub’s chef and, along with Simon Page, its co-owner. “Then a customer gave us six, and it took off from there. Now we have over 100 rare-breed and rescue hens.”
It’s a turn that typifies how the pair has conducted business since taking over the Wellington Arms in 2005. King, an award-winning chef from Australia, and Page, a former music teacher, opened with the idea of “getting all our food in the morning, cooking it, serving it and starting all over again the next day”, and have stirred up a rare sense of communality in the process.
“One evening, a customer asked us just how local our honey was,” says Page. “I told him it was from about 10 miles away, so he helped us set up our own beehives. Now, he supplies us with vegetables from his polytunnels just up the road.”
With a vegetable patch of their own, plus a herb garden by the kitchen, the set-up might seem twee if it weren’t founded on such strongly maintained principles of using locally sourced produce (Orkney beef and Australian salt aside). Even regulars with the odd fruit tree or fishing rod feel moved to chip in.
“One lady turned up with two suitcases of crab apples, so we made crab apple jelly. And one customer shot some geese the other week, so we turned that into a terrine,” explains King. “They never ask for any money, just maybe a beer, and they love seeing their stuff on the menu. Whenever we need something, it always seems to turn up. I’m going to talk to a guy who’s a keen fisherman about getting some trout next.”
In addition to all the hard work going on in the kitchen, the Wellington Arms still fulfils some of the traditional functions expected of a local pub. Walking clubs and bridge circles regularly meet there, and the bar is always full – though there’s a marked increase in older couples and groups of lunching ladies.
“I don’t think many old-style boozers exist any more,” says King. “This place used to be a spit’n’sawdust place where the local rugby team would drink, but now people want somewhere welcoming, to which they can bring their children. When we first opened, people would ask if it was OK for them to bring kids, and I’d always say yes. After all, they’re potential customers.”
The Wellington Arms, Baughurst, Hampshire (0118-982 0110; www.thewellingtonarms.com)
The Black Swan Hotel, Cumbria
Louise Dinnes and her husband Alan had spent two years looking everywhere from the Scottish Highlands to Cornwall for a pub to take over, when they visited Ravenstonedale in Cumbria.
“I remember my first impressions as we drove up,” Louise says. “The village was absolutely gorgeous, but, as we approached the pub, we could see window boxes hanging off the sills, and it was so dirty and unwelcoming. It desperately needed a new lease of life.”
Leaving behind their jobs in sales and marketing, the Dinnes used equity from their house to buy the Black Swan in 2006. It is a beautiful Victorian building large enough comfortably to include guest accommodation, but their plans for its redevelopment went beyond a fresh lick of paint and some new guest ales.
“We think the pub should be at the centre of village life,” Louise explains. “With village shops and post offices closing, people can feel isolated. We wanted to rekindle the community spirit.”
With backing from Pub Is the Hub, an initiative set up in 2002 by the Prince of Wales to help pubs respond to the needs of local communities, the Dinnes opened a small shop on site. Providing everything from postal services and off-sales to medicines, magazines and newspapers, as well as locally baked bread, milk and fresh produce, the Village Store has developed a booming trade among both locals and tourists.
“It has become a real social nucleus. Older villagers come in and end up chatting for 20 minutes, and we have a suggestions blackboard so customers can let us know if they’d like us to order something we don’t usually stock. And we’ve made the pub a much more homely, welcoming place, too. We’ve installed a new coffee machine, and a computer with free broadband that anyone can use, plus we have books and magazines to browse, and games for children,” Louise explains. “It seems to have hit the spot – we’ve been finalists at the Publican Awards twice and been awarded Camra Pub of the Season for our ale, and our hotel accommodation [11 rooms, two of which are dog-friendly and converted to allow full disabled access] has 4 AA stars now.”
This dramatic turnaround was recognised in April, when Prince Charles and Hilary Benn MP, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, paid the Black Swan a visit.
“We arranged for them to meet some of the shop’s suppliers, like the farmer who provides the meat and his wife who bakes the cakes, and talked about the benefits of shopping locally. The Village Store has proven to be a lot more profitable than we could have ever imagined. In less than two years, the Black Swan’s total turnover has gone from £200,000 to £600,000. It’s really buzzing now.”
Black Swan Hotel, Ravenstonedale, Kirkby Stephen, Cumbria (01539-623204; www.blackswanhotel.com). Rooms from £70