Community reopens 'life and soul' village pub

Residents have raised a toast at the grand reopening of the last remaining pub in their village after raising £440,000 to save it.

The Ickleton Lion - now known as the Lion - near Cambridge and Saffron Walden in Essex, was put up for sale by Greene King in 2023.

A community benefit society was set up to buy the pub, which first opened in 1728, and an effort to refurbish the building got under way in December.

Betty Willmott, 93, who has lived in Ickleton all her life, said she hoped the pub would continue to be "the life and soul of the village".

The pub had previously begun serving drinks for limited periods of time, so it could "test the taps".

Rachel Radford, chair of the community group, said everybody was "really excited" for the pub to open properly.

"It's just been an amazing community get-together," she said.

"It's going to be a gradual opening as we manage to recruit staff, and it will build and build and build, but we are so thrilled."

Organisers said about 400 members of the community group and Ickleton residents went along to the official opening day.

Ms Willmott, who helped pop the cork to mark the official reopening, said while the village was "quite busy" nowadays, it was still "a lovely place to live".

Toasting the opening of the pub, she said: "It's always been the hub of the village - even going back to during the war.

"I hope it will continue as the life and soul of the village."

Roland Perry, a supporter of the campaign to reopen the lion, said: "Pubs like this, as a community asset, are so, so important.

"Too many of them have been turned into family homes and they really ought to continue as pubs - particularly if it's the last pub in the village."

Pippa Heylings, the Liberal Democrat MP for South Cambridgeshire, was also helping to pull pints on the opening day.

She said: "Working on community projects like this - I can't imagine anything else that I would much rather be doing when I'm out in the constituency."

Volunteers spent hundreds of hours restoring the Lion since getting the keys just before Christmas.

It comes after 415 people invested in the pub, including from overseas, to raise more than £440,000 in 10 weeks to buy the building, which had sat empty for more than a year.

"They just want to own a bit of an English pub – who wouldn't?" added campaign chair Ms Radford.

The pub is expected to open to the public from 12:00 BST on Wednesday.

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