Cheers! Regulars celebrate as pub named community asset

A PUB in Maidensgrove will be protected for five years as an asset of community value.

A group of residents has successfully registered the Five Horseshoes as an asset of community value with South Oxfordshire District Council.

The pub closed in August last year when previous tenants Tracey and Dan Taverner left after 15 years. It is owned by Brakspear, which has been seeking a new tenant to take over the lease.

Fearing the pub could be sold for redevelopment, Pippa Trench formed the Five Horseshoes Community Group with her husband Amar Inamdar, David Crowther, Chloe Molnar and Susie Chown.

It worked together to ensure the community will have a chance to purchase the pub when it goes on the market.

It means Brakspear cannot sell the property until the community has been given six months to make an offer, which does not have to be accepted.

The Five Horseshoes is in an unnamed road running through Russell’s Water and Maidensgrove. Before it closed, it was the only pub and retail space remaining within the boundaries of Swyncombe and Stonor parishes.

Ms Trench said: “It’s the only place you can go around here. If you’re new to the area, it’s a place to meet your neighbours, where you can come to have a warm welcome.

“It’s the place that brought the community together and we don’t have anywhere else — there’s no café, no shops. It’s a classic rural community.” As part of the application, the group needed to demonstrate the value the pub has to the community, beyond its basic function, and that it is viable as a business.

Ms Trench said: “I’ve been coming here since before I was born. My grandparents moved here in the Fifties and my mum came here to play cribbage.

“When I was a kid, I’d sit in the garden and be passed a Coke and a packet of crisps through the window. Amar and I came here when we were 20, when we first met. We had to do something, because we just thought we’d never forgive ourselves if we didn’t try.”

The group put together an online survey, which was completed by 143 people. Ninety-five per cent of respondents said they felt having a pub in the local area was “very important”, while 88 per cent said they visited the pub at least once a month when it was open.

The survey also showed the pub played an important role in hosting community events, with parties to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022, the coronation of King Charles III in 2023, fundraising events and family weddings and funerals. It also hosted community group meetings and fundraising events, raising hundreds of pounds for charities.

Ms Trench said registering the pub as an asset of community value sends a message that the pub has value, with a community of people behind it.

She said: “It’s not just a pub. The asset of community value is a strong signal that we’re really behind anyone who wants to own this pub and we’re going to fight tooth and nail to save it.”

John Green, who lives in Maidensgrove, said he had been a regular at the 17th century pub for 35 years. He said: “The difference between having a drink in a building like this compared with a shiny café is the aura of it — it’s historic.”

Jan Blunden was another regular at the pub, where she worked in the Seventies.

She said: “I worked in this pub in 1979. It was lovely, we used to have lots of customers because it was more rural back then — we had lots of farmers. It was a successful pub and it’s such a terrible shame. We need it back.” Hugh Meyer began visiting the pub around
11 years ago, when he moved to Maidensgrove with his wife.

He said: “The very first day we moved here we had nothing to cook, so we came here for our first meal and had bangers and mash and we fell asleep at the table.

“This is where we all got to know each other, where we got to know our neighbours. It meant so much to us all.”

Jim Martin wrote a “protest song” called SOS — Save Our Shoes, which he performed with other former pub regulars at a gathering celebrating the achievement.

The lyrics describe the pub as a treasured “place of community”, with great beer, food and views.

It also referenced the village’s connection to the 1968 film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which filmed at the duck pond in Russell’s Water Common.

In 2018, a fundraiser held at the pub featured the original car used in the film.

Mr Martin, who performed at pub events for three years, said: “If you haven’t got a church, the heart of a village is a pub. A big part of a community is having that place to come together.”

One of the pub’s longest-standing customers is Ian Morris, who had been visiting the pub for more than 70 years.

He said: “There’s a picture of me sitting in the pub garden here in 1954, when I was six years old. My parents were regulars and I used to be a regular in the Seventies. I would like to keep it going, it’s a vicinity for the community and brings people together.”

His partner, Sylvia McIvor, added: “It would be lovely to open it again. It’s the character of it, the lovely views — it’s beautiful and it’s needed.”