Long-closed pub gets local community on side with 10% loyalty discount offer
Thames riverside pub the Old Anchor Inn in Abingdon is due to re-open this Wednesday (August 20) after more than two years of closure, run by an independent company with a few pubs in and around London. It had originally been planned to re-open on Friday August 15, but late delivery of furniture caused a delay.
Greene King announced soon after closure that it had given up the lease on the Old Anchor Inn, which is owned by charity Christ’s Hospital and closed in May 2023. The chances of permission being granted to convert the historic building into housing were very thin, but with business rates said to be a major factor putting off prospective lease holders, it has taken this long to find someone prepared to take it on.
Cask and Crew is a small independent operator whose pubs include the Woodpecker in Battersea and the Bricklayers Arms in High Wycombe. Formerly known as Peacock Inns, it aims to position the Old Anchor as a food-led pub with a strong community focus, including 10% off all drinks and food for people living within a three-mile radius who sign up for its loyalty scheme.
General manager Jonathan Mills said: “We have taken a 25-year lease and we aim to be a gastro-pub, but with a wide range of cask and keg beers. Cask beers will come mainly from Greene King’s guest range as they came up with the best offer by a long way. Staff have already been recruited and the menu at Cote restaurants is the kind of thing we’re aiming for. I intend to stay here for the long-term and make this our flagship.”
The pub will not be tied to Greene King so the prospect of selling local ales remains, with one of the staff recruited from Loose Cannon, the town’s brewery. The gastro-pub focus might be surprising at a time when many pubs are cutting back on food because of cost of living pressures and staff shortages, but Jonathan said the riverside location – on St Helen’s Wharf near St Helen’s church – would make this a success. The pub has been thoroughly refurbished and a new dining area opened up, and in the courtyard there are plans to bring back Aunt Sally. In the longer term it hopes to have a barge moored opposite that could be used for functions.
The former Morland pub – with the artist wall tile till prominent – dates from 1884 when it was built on the site of three old cottages. It passed to Greene King after the East Anglia-based brewery acquired and then closed down Morland in 2000, but it had become run-down in the years leading up to closure and Greene King was apparently keen to give it up.