'Dick Turpin' pub to reopen with new investment
BBCA pub believed to have been frequented by highwayman Dick Turpin is set to reopen after a £480,000 investment.
The Grade II-listed Cock Inn in Sibson, near Market Bosworth, Leicestershire, dates back more than 750 years but shut in 2019 and has been closed ever since.
More than 2,500 people signed a petition calling for the owners, Star Pubs Trading Limited, to repair and reopen the building back in April of this year.
The company's new licensee, Jason Billingham, said the area's history and community feel were both key factors in him taking on the renovation before reopening in November.
Billingham said: "I fell in love with the character and the history of the pub, I went for a walk round probably January time. The residents are desperate to have the pub reopened. I'll be consulting with them to make sure every step of the way.
"We're planning to open in November and we're looking at some fun ways to include the history of the pub. That's what makes the building. It's the same as the environment that you create and for us it's important that we take that on board."
Jonathan Collett, who began the petition, said the community felt "vindicated after strongly campaigning for the pub to be repaired and restored".
The new investment will help renovate key areas of the pub, including behind the bar, the dining area, the cellar, installing a 45-seater courtyard garden, as well as restoring external areas and signage.
Campaigners said the Cock Inn was among the oldest surviving inns in England, predating the Battle of Bosworth, and was rumoured to have been used by highwayman Dick Turpin as a refuge.
Jonathan Collett, one of the campaigners who pushed for the pub to reopen, said the community was ecstatic to have their historic pub back.
"We're absolutely delighted. It's a landmark pub that's famous across the Midlands," he said.
"It was always very popular. It serves the needs of the local community as well and there's so much history there.
"It really needed saving, not only the building, but the pub itself as well. And so this is wonderful news and hopefully it can be restored to its former glory.
"A lot of the pubs in our locality are being saved at the moment after huge worries about them.
"There does seem to be some good news on the way in some of the local villages, but the Cock Inn was such a landmark of the Midlands, and so important too to so many people in so many different places, and particularly in our village of Sibson."
County councillor Joshua Melen has his own personal connection to the pub, and said residents had been campaigning for the building to receive investment for more than four years.
"It's a real testament to the hard work of the people in the village and the committee in particular who have been pushing for this for so long," he said.
"There's extensive family background with the pub itself for me. My grandparents went there when they were courting in the 60s. My parents went there when they were dating in the 80s and I had my first pint in the pub as well."
Melen added: "I think it's absolutely essential that it stays, certainly on the exterior, exactly the way it is.
"It's such a local landmark and an icon. I think it's a testament to the history and the significance of the pub that we ran petitions about it.
"It's that sort of classic chocolate box: thatched roof, timber frame pub, and we really want to keep it that way so that hopefully it will stand for a few more generations."
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