It's the ideal arrangement: a silent partner who takes care

There are plenty of people who put their financial futures on the line to own a freehold pub, and others who sacrifice their independence for the security of a pubco orbrewery lease.

However, imagine having the financial back-up of a landlord to support the fabric of the building but with all the freedom to run the business how you want and be supplied by whoever you liked. Wouldn't it be great?

Four years ago, Eddie Simmonds and Hazel Purvis achieved just that when they becameleaseholders for the Houblon Inn, a stone-structured country inn at Oasby, near Grantham in Lincolnshire.

The pub dates back to the 17th century and was named after Sir John Houblon, the first governor of the Bank of England who was a frequent visitor to Sir John Newton at nearby Culverthorpe Hall. Houblon's portrait still appears on the reverse of a £50 note.

£150,000 refurb gets under way

In 2001, the pub was bought by a pension fund as an investment property, and the deal struck by Simmonds and Purvis left the fund responsible for the upkeep of the exterior of the building, leaving them to do what they liked on the inside.

A year ago they did just that, spending £150,000 on a refurb that did away with a "flowery carpet and red wall" look in favour of a spruced-upmodern feel. Simmonds ­ ex-Army and City,but now retrained as a chef ­ laid the new stone floors as well as carrying out some of the electrics, gardening and building work.

Purvis put her previous experience at a bar in the City of London, and at a Regent Inns outlet in Cheltenham, into producing the contemporary feel, without losing the warmth of a country pub.

The pair sourced furniture and fittings from auctions and reclamation yards.

"When we first came in, all the furniture was exactly the same," says Simmonds. "All the tables and chairs in the dining area were laid out like school dinners. Now we can move the furniture as and when we need to. If we get a table of 22 who want it for a dinner, we can put them together."

Keeping it in the family, the pub's four letting rooms were given the Changing Rooms treatment by Purvis's mum, Doreen.

The kitchen was expanded and the beer lines reconfigured so they didn't pass over the cooking area, the warmest place in the pub.

Space was taken from both gents' and ladies' loos to create a ramped disabled toilet. The entry from the garden was rerouted to take people to the bar without having to pass the gents.

The garden itself is a work in progress but green-fingered Simmonds has already replanted the hedges and put in a shingle base, ahead of plans to create several distinct seated spaces. The village pump, which used to sit outside the pub, has been rediscovered and should eventually take its place on a new patio.

Pub showed massive potential

When the refurb took place, the pub had to close for a few weeks but it wasn't the first time.

"When we first came here it was very run down and had ceased trading," says Simmonds. "There was a wonderful old threadbare red carpet which was bought from an Ideal Home Exhibition in the 1930s. But we saw massive potential.

Local micros are so important

"We'd worked for five years in Cambridge for someone who bought redundant pubs and revived them and sold them on after about 18 months. We managed some of them for a while and that's where we learnt to do what we've done here."

Simmonds' food is an integral ingredient in the Houblon's revival.

"Everything is freshly cooked to order off a board," he says. "There are lots of other places that do fast food and we decided not to go down that route.

"Of course, there are lots of places doing decent food, but at the time, there was nobody else in the area doing good food and good real ales.

"We're free to buy our beer from anywhere we like and one of the most important things for us is to support local microbreweries. We take beer in rotation from all the brewers within 100 miles. We always take Tiger from Everards because they have helped us with cellarage.

"It works well because every time a beer changes we clean the lines, which means they can be done two or three times a week. A nine [gallon cask] can run out in a day if it's busy."

The Houblon also has a 24-bin wine list which, while it naturally does not champion local producers, it does display the pub's spirit of independence.

But it's not just local micros that benefit from the Houblon's business ethos. It's perhaps no surprise to find that it stretches to local food suppliers ­ but not many pubs sell ranges of luxury soaps and candles from local cottage industry producers.

You can do those sorts of things when you're in charge of your own destiny. Simmonds says: "Without being too disparaging, we're left to run the business how we want. We don't have some 25-year-old wannabe with a mobile phone coming and telling us how to run it. It was a very good deal. It's the nearest you can get to running a freehouse when you don't have the finance to buy it."