Campaign For Real Ale

Graham and Celia Steward at the Bird in Hand in Henley have clocked up 25 years of owning/running the pub: the exact date was Saturday 3rd November. Marisa Francini, on behalf of the South Oxfordshire branch, presented them with a Special Award certificate to mark the occasion, and made a small speech, emphasising the following points:

• It is a fantastic community pub with a huge number of regulars of all ages.
• They are open every day of the week, lunchtime and evening. (Not all of the pubs in town do so).
• They have appeared in 24 consecutive editions of the Good Beer Guide
• It is a credit to them that they have managed to stick to their initial plan to run the pub as a wet-led business for 25 years without having to resort to an extensive food offer in order to survive. They do serve snacks though!
• Their success is all the more remarkable, considering that the pub had been closed for a period of time before they took it on and brought it back from the dead. CAMRA estimates that 18 pubs a week are closing, but the Bird continues to thrive and prosper, and long may this continue!

Pub news:

The Chequers, Aston Tirrold has reopened as ‘The Fat Frog at the Chequers’.

The Cherry Tree, Stoke Row, has new licensees and is currently very busy. They are selling hand-pumped cider.

The Leatherne Bottel, Goring, has reopened as a restaurant.

Brakspear has delisted the Crown, Nuffield, from its pub list, is in the process of making the Four Horseshoes, Checkendon, fully residential, and is advertising for a new tenant at the Cross Keys, Wallingford. On a more positive note, Brakspear has indicated that the Rising Sun, Highmoor, is in the process of acquiring a new tenant.