Of course, the echoing emptiness of the place might have been due to the new landlady and the £4.75 price on a pint of Wadworths. Well below London prices, I know, but a sock in the wallet for us benighted wurzels, and the usual loud village crowd in the snug were gone. It was all very sad.
The landlady, as it happened, was very pleasant and was happy to talk about how the economic squeeze was affecting the rural leisure scene. Her predecessors had gone out of business despite their thriving evening food trade, and she'd taken on the tenancy to see what could be done. And five months on, the answer seemed to be not much.
![Sad :(](./images/smilies/icon_e_sad.gif)
The usual suspects, of course - cheap supermarket booze and Netflix at home, tighter drink driving laws, and even the smoking ban. But beyond that, she said, people were simply not going out so much because of the cost. Faced with the pressure to meet the rent, she'd had to increase the prices, and the rest had been a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Two other decent country pubs on the same stretch of road have already closed, although one was redeveloped for housing and the other had inadequate parking, so it was always going to struggle. My neighbour who's a CAMRA organiser says it's happening everywhere. Structurally, the country is over-supplied with pubs in relation to its needs. Something ancient and traditional is passing.
![Neutral :|](./images/smilies/icon_neutral.gif)
BJ