Former Top Gear presenter "very excited" Swallowcliffe pub is back
It's been shut since the country was put into lockdown.
Last updated 28th Oct 2020
The Royal Oak pub in the village of Swallowcliffe reopens today (Wednesday 28th October) for the first time since March.
Customers will be welcomed back from 6pm, in what is a fully booked opening night.
In September, it was announced that the pub had the backing of a famous face.
Former Top Gear presenter James May, who has a home nearby in Ansty, bought half of it.
Mr May told Greatest Hits Radio how the purchase came about:
"We've been talking about me buying some of the pub for probably about a year because I know the previous owners wanted to sell and I toyed with the idea and then it closed because of Covid, this is not a distressed purchase I didn't go in and say right I'm offering you ÂŁ50 because your pubs ruined or anything like that we stuck to the original deal but I thought there's a real danger that this pub could go forever."
He has been making many visits to the site over the last few weeks to assist staff in getting it ready for it's reopening.
In order to welcome people back safely, a number of Covid secure measures are in place including reduced capacity.
The car enthusiast says he's delighted for it to be back because the team have been working so hard, while he's done the fun bits like tasting the wine:
"I woke up this morning, at about half past 4, very excited because I've never done anything like this before, I'm not running and there's management in place to do that but my name is attached to it so I'm secretly proud and I've been looking forward to going to the pub again which is exactly why we're doing this, we want it open so people can go to the pub, it's been too long.
I'm not sure I'm making a massive contribution if I'm honest, I'm tweeting about it and doing some publicity and later on I'm going to help them put the glasses out and put wine on the shelves but I think if I quietly left and came back later they wouldn't notice.
I don't remember it that well the wine tasting because we chose them all in one session but it reminded me of the old days of doing TV with Oz Clarke and things like that, I remembered my wine tasting skills and techniques."
The pub are asking people to make table reservations ahead of time to help them out during the pandemic.
Here are their new opening times:
Monday - Tuesday: Closed
Wednesday - Thursday: 12pm - 3pm and 5.30pm - 10pm
Friday - Saturday: 12pm - 10pm
Sunday: 12pm - 6pm
For full details visit royaloakswallowcliffe.com.