The Countryman's Inn: Meet the Yorkshire villagers who saved their local pub and now run it themselves

Chris Heap moved to the smaller than the average village of Hunton, for the love of a good woman from Middleton Tyas, in 1994. Chris is the vice chairman of Countryman’s Community Pub Society that was formed in 2021 and took over The Countryman’s Inn in 2022.

Chris said it was by no means a foregone conclusion that Hunton would still have a pub today when the first sparks of the community working together was mentioned.

“When I moved into the village nearly 30 years ago we had two pubs, The New Inn and The Countryman’s, which had closed down once before. The Countryman’s reopened and then the New Inn closed down over a decade ago. It is now houses.

“The last landlord of The Countryman’s had been trying to sell the pub for quite a while and unfortunately fell ill during Covid.

“A few people met in a garden during the pandemic restrictions and got talking about the pub and its future. I wasn’t at that meeting, but what came out of it was the belief that we had to do something, or we were going to lose the only pub in the village.

“The day we bought the pub as a community owned enterprise was a fantastic day. It was 9 September 2022 and Hunton Steam Rally weekend, the village’s biggest annual event. Taking ownership that same weekend provided our new tenants with a great start.

Chris said the news of a Community Ownership Fund available from the Government to buy the pub had been what had set the ball rolling.

“We set up a steering group to find out what the interest was, to gauge whether it was something we could do? Whether it was something people wanted and would patronise.

“We asked people what they wanted from a pub. What did they want us to do and how much they were prepared to pledge towards it. If we made shares available, how much would they be interested in buying?

“We got a good feel for what people wanted, which was a friendly pub that they can come to for a drink and food, but not fine dining. The type of food that when you come home from work on a night you go, ‘I can’t be bothered to cook tonight let’s go to the pub’, rather than being a special treat going out once a month, it was something people might do once a week.

“We began hosting little fundraising events to get some capital behind us, not capital to buy the pub but just for the administration behind it for any fees, surveys, things like that. We held a Zoom meeting with over 90 people. That was a challenge in itself.

“In the interim, while the testing of the water was being undertaken and forms were being completed, the landlord at the time, allowed us to open the pub and run it as volunteers on his behalf, which we did for a short time and then he put in Lisa Lowry, who’d worked for him previously, as manager.

Taking over the pub wasn’t all plain sailing for the group chaired by Chris’ fellow Hunton resident Matty Cockburn. In August 2021, having applied to the Community Ownership Fund, Chris said they found out their bid had not been accepted.

“We were advised there was nothing we’d done wrong. It was just about finances and how much money they were giving out at that time. We were encouraged to apply again in the next round of funding and were about to when we were approached again and asked if we could resubmit our original plan.

“In the meantime, we had looked at those that had been successful and there had been a difference between ourselves and those. They already had the money in the bank for their share offer, whereas we had pledges.

“We came up with a share offer in November. We opened it up in December 2021. We had been debating whether it was a good idea just before Christmas but within three weeks we’d got £230,000 in shares from over 150 members with a minimum investment of £500 and maximum of £20,000. We were quite surprised how quickly and easily it had gone. Not bad for a village with a population of just over 400.

Work is currently going on to bring the pub into the 2020s. The old kitchen has been completely gutted and a new kitchen will open just before Easter; bedrooms are next; but the pub is open and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, their local MP turned up recently to give it the once over.

Chris said that the new tenants are people who have the interests of Hunton and The Countryman’s in their hearts.

“Lisa Lowry & Dan Male are the tenants, they both live in the village, have a real passion for the pub and saw this as a business opportunity.

“They weren’t given an easy ride. They had to give a good, realistic business plan and within that there had to be support for the local community because this is all about that.

“Because Lisa was managing the pub and Dan was working with her before it became officially community run they probably had the longest ever job interview. When their tenancy was announced everyone said it was the right decision. Come and see us. We are delighted with what we have achieved so far!