Regulars help local pub uncover its history (From Tewkesbury Admag)

Regulars help local pub uncover its history

10:55am Thursday 25th June 2009

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

A BIT of detective work has helped a Worcestershire village pub re-enact a piece of local history.

Richard Cook, a regular at the Crown Inn at Kemerton, near Ashchurch, uncovered a photograph showing the pub’s clientele posing outside the pub in 1937.

It had been given to him many years before by a former landlady.

“We then started trying to put names to the faces,” says current landlord Geoff Fox. “The first one was easy, it was Richard’s father, Harold. He was 21 at the time and ran a market garden.”

Other names fell into place, largely with the help of another regular, Gordon Long, who is also vice chairman of the Parish Council.

Once they established the identities of the 1937 patrons, the Crown’s modern day regulars – including Richard Cook taking his father’s place - posed for their own picture which now hangs alongside the original in the bar.

“I have been trying to trace the history of the pub since I arrived here a couple of years ago, “said Geoff.

“Some of the regulars have managed to track down documents and we now believe the pub was built in 1783.”

The latest piece of sleuthing will also help a good cause.

Those people in the latest photo have offered to make a contribution for their own personal copy. This will go to the pub’s air ambulance appeal, which has raised over £3,000 in the last two years.

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)