The Nightingale is Guinness Community Outlet 2009
A huge commitment to charity fundraising and close links with the elderly have helped a pub to prizes worth more than £10,000.
The Nightingale in Balham, South London, is looking forward to a facelift after winning the four-month hunt for the Guinness Community Outlet of the Year, run in association with The Publican to celebrate 250 years of the iconic brand.
The prize won by licensees Lee and Keris De Villiers includes £5,125 for improvements and £3,075 for staff and themselves.
Judges praised the pub for raising thousands of pounds for the local community with its Nightingale Walk, and supporting elderly local residents.
The pub also receives more than £2,000 for a local event to celebrate Arthur's Day - celebrating the 250th anniversary of Arthur Guinness signing the lease on the St James's Gate Brewery - which takes place next Thursday (September 24).
Keris said: "It was quite a shock to win. We were going to host an Arthur's Day party anyway, but it's going to be a lot bigger now. I'm booking a singer for the night, and putting a free buffet with Steak & Guinness pie, Guinness oysters and even Guinness brownies."
She is already talking to the council about using some of the money to pave over a cobbled area in front of the pub to help elderly people.
Five more pubs receive runners-up prizes worth £2,500 each after the Guinness competition: the Trafford Arms in Norwich, the Three Tuns in Darlington, the Hollingwood in Chesterfield, JK's Club in Neath and the Lamb in Newbury.
