Box People and Places
Latest Issue 48 Summer 2025 
  • This Issue
    • Augustus Perren
    • Church Photos
    • Box Village Photos
    • Bath Photos
    • Pictor Photos
    • Celebration Photos
    • Perren Family Photos
    • Unknown Photos
    • Box People Photos
    • VE Day Full Story
    • Memories of VE Day 1945
    • VE Daty 2025 Anniversary
    • Oral History
  • Previous
    • Issue 46 - Box Hill
    • Issue 45 - Moleyns Lordship
    • Issue 44 - Viking Hazelbury
    • Issue 43 - Late Medieval
    • Issue 42 - Beautiful Box
    • Issue 41 - Becket Plays
    • Issue 40 - Selwyn Hall
    • Issues 30-39 >
      • Issue 39 - Modern Box
      • Issue 38 - Railway Workers
      • Issue 37 - Mill Lane Halt
      • Issue 36 - Box Rec
      • Issue 35 - Inter war
      • Issue 34 - Fogleigh House
      • Issue 33 - KIngsdown Post Office
      • Issue 32 - Chapel Lane
      • Issue 31 - Saxon Box
      • Issue 30 - Georgian Rudloe
    • Issues 20-29 >
      • Issue 29 - Darkest Hour
      • Issue 28 - VE Day
      • Issue 27 - Northey
      • Issue 26 - Heritage Trail
      • Issue 25 - Slave Owners
      • Issue 24 - Highwaymen
      • Issue 23 - Georgian
      • Issue 22 - War Memorial
      • Issue 21 - Childhood 1949-59
      • Issue 20 - Box Home Guard
    • Issues 10-19 >
      • Issue 19 - Outbreak WW2
      • Issue 18 - Building Bargates
      • Issue 17 - Railway Changes
      • Issue 16 - Quarries
      • Issue 15 - Rail & Quarry
      • Issue 14 - Civil War
      • Issue 13: Box Revels
      • Issue 12 - Where You Live
      • Issue 11 - Tudor & Stuart
      • Issue 10 - End of Era 1912
    • Issues 1-9 >
      • Issue 9 - Health & Leisure
      • Issue 8 - Farming & Rural
      • Issue 7 - Manufacturing
      • Issue 6 - Celebrations
      • Issue 5 - Victorian Centre
      • Issue 4 - Slump after WW1
      • Issue 3 - Great War 1914-18
      • Issue 2 - 1950s & 1960s
      • Issue 1 - 1920s
    • Index By Author
    • Partner Sites & Book Reviews
    • Currency Converter
  • People
  • Places
  • General
  • FULL Series
  • Contact
    • Blog
    • Q&A
SOS Save Our Swan, 1995      Jane Hussey      June 2018       Photos courtesy Tim Wright
Picture
​If you don’t think The Swan Inn is in a rural location, have a look at the photo above of Kingsdown in the 1970s. The pub has often been described as in a precarious position both on the edge of a cliff and isolated from many local houses by difficult roads and tracks. As well as these problems, adverse weather severely affects the pub as can be seen from the photos below taken in 1962.
Picture
Picture
In 1995 matters came to a head when the following notice appeared in Kingsdown.
​SOS Save Our Swan pub
Gibbs Mew are selling the Swan Inn, Kingsdown.  It will probably close.
You can help to prevent this by attending a public meeting at the pub on Tuesday 11 April 1995 at 7.30 pm.
Your views are important – and your help is vital
There was plenty of publicity and a local newspaper published a full-page article:
SWAN SONG Regulars hope to save their local.
​VILLAGERS PLAN TO BUY OUT PUB
Regulars at a village pub are so angry it is being put up for auction that they are rallying round to try to buy it themselves. The landlord and landlady at the Swan Inn, Kingsdown, near Bath, received a letter from their brewery last week saying the pub was being put up for auction at the end of May (1995). But locals are furious and are meeting tonight to see if they can raise the £200,000 needed.

(Landlady Sam Eley) who has run the pub with her husband John for the past year said she was shocked to receive the letter. She said: ‘We had the letter on Saturday saying the pub was being put up for auction. The locals are not at all happy about it. We have three children and it is not a nice prospect to think about having to move. We have put everything we had into the pub and it really is beautiful with lovely views.’
 
Ruggero Violappo, who had lived in the village for 8 years and organised the meeting said: ‘We are going to raise enough money between us to keep the pub open. It is the only thing we have in Kingsdown. There is no bus service, no street lighting, and the post office was shut 15 years ago. It is a very popular pub and is a focal point for local people. We do not want to be without a pub.’

David King, retail director for Salisbury-based Gibbs Mew brewery, which owns the pub, said: ‘We have carried out a strategic review and decided to sell the Swan Inn as it does not fit into our portfolio.  It will be auctioned at the end of May.  The current licensees have been given the first option to purchase the pub.  It is a super pub.’
​
Mr King said he thought the property was probably worth in the region of £200,000. A neighbour of the pub, who did not want to be named, said he felt the brewery had done it a disservice over the years as the licence seemed to change hands every year. He said: ‘It doesn’t really inspire loyalty when there’s no continuity. To be fair to the present couple, I’ve heard good reports of their food.’  He described the £200,000 price as a joke. He said: ‘That’s a ridiculously high price.'
Picture
My husband and I filled in the petition to Gibbs Mew sent to us by Sam Eley, that the Swan should only be sold as a licenced premises and for no other use.  Either Sam or her husband John was a trained chef – hence the reference to the good food.

The pub was saved but continued to have problems of erosion, location and adverse weather. It is remarkable that it has been a survivor when so many other pubs in the village have been closed. 
Back to Issue 23