Hi folks. I just happened to come across this site and saw a story about my old Red Lion from 2006. I took the Red lion as a Courage tenant in 1987 to the day !! . Some nearly 20 years later and now the first private owner in some 200 years of this site my wife and I sold the Freehold to Punch Enterprises . We still had The Star in Church Street a couple of minutes around the corner. We had firstly approached a number of small breweries to see if they would like to buy including Harvey’s whose Ales we sold in oceans but they all said no !! So Punch it was, they chose a Lesee who destroyed the business within 3 months and the Red closed for some 9 months and never recovered. The building is now owned by Greene King who have turned it into an inappropriate London style pub. We had 20 years of incredibly hard work to make the Red what it became, with our massive selection of ever changing Ales and some 350 bottle Lagers from around the world. The good news to the story is that as The Red Lion business collapsed I was able to do a deal with The Star brewery landlord that enabled the Star to take over from where the Red left off. Not only loads of Real Ale but also a wide choice of Ciders that have enabled the Star to be a CAMRA cider pub of the year for the last 14 years. I sold the Lease of the Star to my Manager, Andy, and he has maintained and improved on the Business that he inherited from me. Good to see success !!
