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Regulars aim to save pub

From the archive, first published Monday 4th Aug 2003.

Villagers in a small south Oxfordshire hamlet have rallied around to save their local pub.

Residents of Stoke Talmage, near Chalgrove, asked South Oxfordshire District Council to block plans for the Red Lion to become a house.

They have called on their MP Boris Johnson for help.

The loss of the pub -- the only one in the village -- would herald the end of an era.

The Wilkins family has owned it for more than 60 years, and its interior is almost unchanged since the 1960s. But present owner Steve Wilkins, 50, has sold the pub and the smallholding on which it stands, and plans to move to a farm in Lincolnshire at the end of the month.

He said: "I'm not sure whether the new owners will run it as a pub or just use it as a home. I have tried to make a living here but cannot do so and I want a change.

"It will be a big wrench but I'm not making a living here any more and someone came along with an offer I couldn't refuse."

But the imminent closure of the pub has angered people in the tiny hamlet, which according to the electoral roll has a population of just 46.

Fergus Lapage, a regular at the Red Lion, said: "We would love to see it remain open as a pub. It could do with a lot of investment but it could be made into a successful place like other rural pubs.

"We lost our nearest alternative at Pyrton four years ago. If we want a drink we have to drive along very narrow and twisty roads to Watlington, Chalgrove or Tetsworth. The Half Moon at Cuxham burned down and will not reopen until the autumn."

Frank Wilkins took the pub on as a smallholding at first and always said he sold more milk than beer. He was the longest serving landlord in Oxfordshire when he died five years ago.

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