It was a case of standing room only as Great Salkeld village hall was rammed with more than 100 people eager to hear about the fate of the village’s only pub, the Highland Drove Inn.
Residents turned up at a public meeting last Wednesday to find out why the Drove had closed at short notice on Sunday, October 16, and what its future might be. Among those present was the pub’s owner, Joshua Church.
Mr Church bought the Highland Drove, together with its sister pub the Cross Keys, Carleton, Penrith, following the departure of villagers Donald and Christine Newton, who had turned it into a popular gathering spot over 24 years.
Under their management, it built up a reputation for excellent food, attracting customers from far and wide, as well as being a drinking haunt and social centre for many locals. The 16th century inn also offered bed and breakfast accommodation.
Their tenure ended with a period of closure, after which it was bought by Mr Church and reopened 14 months ago. It has since had issues including problems retaining staff and serving food on a consistent basis. At the meeting, Mr Church explained his business model for country pubs, which is to buy them and then lease them out to tenants.
Describing himself as passionate about country pubs, he explained how in the first three months he charges no rent, to give the businesses a chance to become established, then gradually increases the rent at a rate that enables each tenant to grow their business.
Speaking later, he said: “Generally we buy pubs to keep them open — because we like them — and that’s our intention with the Highland Drove. The rooms need to be opened and food needs to be done.”
When challenged about this business model not working for the Highland Drove, he told the meeting it operated well with other establishments owned by his family business. The other pubs in its Cumbrian portfolio are the Huntsman, Cockermouth; Ship, Dovenby; Wheatsheaf Inn, Embleton; Little Arms, Cleator; Grey Goat, Baggrow; Tithe Barn, Cockermouth — now called Tithe Barn Hotel and Tithe Tap — and Old Mill Inn, Dearham.
However, the tenant of the Highland Drove, Joseph Gregory, claimed on Great Salkeld’s community Facebook page that he simply could not make the numbers add up, stating: “Sorry the pub is closed for the time being. The truth is that it’s just not sustainable in its current format.”
He is currently advertising for someone else to take over the lease and says some potential new tenants have come forward. In an advert on Facebook Marketplace, he says the pub has an annual maintainable turnover of £400,000 without rooms to let and £500,000 with.
However, at the public meeting some locals said they had been let down by Mr Gregory. They mentioned how one of the more profitable elements of the pub, the rooms, were taken out of service completely so an opportunity to generate extra income, particularly over the holiday periods, had been lost.
Also, the pub had stopped serving food and opened for limited hours due to staffing issues. In the time the pub was open, there was a high turnover of chefs.
Overall, they felt the pub had been “run down” while Mr Gregory focused on the other one he continues to run, the Cross Keys. Mr Gregory told the Herald the Highland Drove, was “changing hands and not closed”, with a new tenant set to come in, and that it had cost him £1,000 a week to keep it running for a year. “It has cost me a lot of money and I can’t keep funding that,” he said.
He described the pub’s room as not being of a suitable standard for letting and estimated the likely cost of rectifying this at £70,000, adding that there are staffing issues across the hospitality industry.
At the village hall meeting, there were cheers from the floor for former pub manager Justyna Maliszewska, who had kept it going as best she could under difficult circumstances. She sat by Mr Church’s side throughout the meeting.
Concerns were also raised about the pub possibly being sold off as a residential dwelling, to which Mr Church replied that he had no plans to sell. He explained that he rarely sells any of his pubs and if he did so then “the Highland Drove would be the last to go”.
Following an application by Great Salkeld Parish Council, the Highland Drove has been granted asset of community value status. Bev Pink, who chairs the parish council, said: “Given all the uncertainty surrounding the pub over the pandemic, we thought it best to apply for community asset status. This way, locals at least would be given a chance to save the pub and prevent it from being turned into a residential property which is the fate of many other rural pubs up and down the country.”
The meeting ended with Mr Church saying he would contact the current tenant and share with him the community’s concerns. He proposed several possible courses of action, one of which was his business taking the pub back into its control, running the rooms and finding someone else to run the restaurant and pub side of things.
He promised to keep the community updated on the situation, and many left the meeting more hopeful than when it started.
