A DEVON pub is re-opening to the public after being shut for more than two years.

The Molesworth Arms at Pyworthy will welcome customers from 11am next Saturday, December 12.

The change of fortune for the local came about thanks to a chance visit to the village by a couple from Berkshire.

Mr Kit Hepple, a chartered surveyor, and his wife, Monique, a landscape gardener, discovered the pub when they were staying with friends, and went to the village to borrow a concrete loader.

Mrs Hepple saw the pub was closed, and the couple managed to track down the owner, to find out the story behind it.

The pub had been closed since August 2013 and had been added to Torridge District Council’s list of assets of community value on October 30 of that year.

This listing meant that upon the sale of the pub, the community would have a chance to delay a sale in order to prepare a bid to buy it.

Back in September, around 60 people attended a meeting of ‘The Pyworthy Action Group’, to discuss the potential of purchasing the pub as a co-operative.

Mr and Mrs Hepple attended that meeting, and explained their intentions of buying the pub and reopening the pub. A show of hands indicated those present at the meeting were happy for Mr Hepple to go ahead with purchasing the pub.

Mr and Mrs Hepple have been busy refurbishing the Molseworth Arms, ahead of its official re-opening this Saturday.

Mr Hepple told the Post: “We are definitely opening just as a ‘wet’ pub for the rest of December. The restaurant will be open and food available as of the New Year.

“For New Year’s Eve this year we are only going to be open until 7pm — Pyworthy Village Hall has already arranged a New Year’s party.

“We will be open Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day from noon to 2pm.

“It has come together very nicely and it feels like the whole building is breathing again.

“People in the community are all very excited, and some have been popping in on a regular basis to see how things are going. Everybody’s been very helpful — and the work that’s going on here, they are all from the village.”

John Burnard was involved in the Pyworthy Action Group, which was set up because there were concerns the pub could have been turned into flats. He said of the new owners: “We wish them well. There were 60 people at the meeting, who said they would support the pub. Basically, we did what we wanted to do, which was to keep it as a pub.”