The pub made the headlines this week when Everett was spotted pulling pints behind the bar.
He is one of 30 volunteers keeping the pub open while the private owners look for someone to run the premises permanently.
Volunteer Clive Bullen, who runs the pub with two other local people, told The Morning Advertiser, the Swan is an important social space in the village and provides somewhere for local people to get together and socialise.
The pub has been very successful in the past winning a raft of awards as Wiltshire Life’s Pub of the Year 2017 and also The Best Rural Pub in the UK in 2018 from the Countryside Alliance.
Heartbeat of the village
Bullen said: “Clearly Covid came along and knocked the stuffing out of hospitality and especially the pub industry.
“The tenants just got back on their feet after Covid, then there was the cost of the Ukraine war and the cost-of-living crisis.
“Understandably, at the end of 2023 after 10 years, the tenants decided it was time to move on.”
The pub was closed between January 2024 to August 2024 while the search for a tenant took place.
Bullen continued: “That proved it is the heartbeat and the hub of the village, and how critical it is for social interaction.”
A new tenant reopened the pub but decided to move on in June this year and the local community did not want the Swan to be closed for any amount of time.
Volunteers
Volunteers have since been helping to run the pub temporarily until the recruitment of the new tenant takes place.
They are doing everything from serving behind the bar, to cleaning to helping in the garden.
Everett told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “[The Swan] is in a rural village, and the people in the village realised that without it, there’s no possibility of communication, and so they wanted to keep the pub going.”
He added: “Without a pub in a village, if you’re in the countryside and you’re eight miles from the nearest town, it’s sad, and it’s such a difficult time for pubs in general.”
Bullen added that he believes the pub has the potential to be profitable with the right licensees.
While it is operating wet-led at the moment, it has a good kitchen that could also accommodate a food offering.
