MY PUB: The Milbury at Beauworth, near Winchester, Hampshire

Sited at an intersection of ancient trackways, the pub would have been a convenient resting place for all travellers over the centuries, just as it is today.

After a long period of neglect, it was taken over in 2023 by highly experienced hospitality duo Clive and Tanith Cummings.

Here, Tanith tells The Morning Advertiser all about their latest renovation project, how the Milbury is once again a thriving community pub and their exciting plans for the future.

The pub

The Milbury is a Grade II-listed freehouse in the countryside near Winchester, Hampshire, with lovely views across the fields to the National Trust property of Hinton Ampner.

Sadly, when we discovered it, it was rather unloved. It appeared the previous owner had planned to turn it into private housing, so the parish council applied for a community asset order to be placed on the pub. After that the owner put it on the market, but it remained up for sale for nine years largely because potential buyers were put off by its increasingly poor state.

For us though, it was exactly what we were looking for – in the right location to be near our family, with live-in accommodation above, plenty of inside and outside space, lots of character features, a large car park and those beautiful views.

The pub hadn’t been refurbished since the 1980s and needed a new boiler, new wiring, plumbing and repairs to the roof and chimneys, so it took nine months before we were able to open for drinks, and a further five months before we could start serving food.

We’ve tried to create a modern, beautifully furnished, comfortable space inside, keeping away from the idea that there’s the pub and then there’s the restaurant – we serve the same food throughout, but each part of the building has a little bit of a different look and feel.

The publicans

The Milbury is the first pub we’ve owned but it’s by no means our first hospitality business.

We’ve both been in hospitality since we were young. For several years, we were joint general managers at Amberley Castle, part of the Relais & Châteaux collection of hotels, which was Clive’s parents’ hotel.

We also managed Clive’s parents’ pub, the Inn On The Lake in Godalming, and their London-based outside catering company.

Prior to buying the freehold of the Milbury in 2023, we were living in France where we owned, created and ran the Michelin-starred hotel Abbaye de la Bussière in Burgundy.

Some of our customers at the Milbury recognise us from the TV because our project to transform the former religious retreat into a luxury hotel was featured in Channel 4’s Escape to the Chateau DIY in 2018.

After 17 successful years running the hotel, and bringing up our four children there, we decided to return to the UK in search of a new project.

We’d done a Michelin-starred restaurant and hotel, so what we really wanted was a really nice pub serving really nice food – the kind of place we would go to and enjoy.

We also needed a home and an income because we’re too young and too poor to retire.

We like to restore buildings, not buy other people’s ideas, so we wanted a project, and when we walked in here it was perfect, it ticked every box.

The trade

A lot of our customers are locals who live in the village and the surrounding villages but people also drive over from places like Winchester, Southampton and Petersfield to eat here or have a drink in the garden in summer or by the cosy fire in winter.

We’re right on the South Downs Way, which is walked by 60,000 people a year, including international visitors from places like the US, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands. It’s also a really popular cycling area. So what that adds up to is a very eclectic mix of customers and, in turn, a real mixture of what we serve.

Cyclists and walkers want energy and refreshment, so drinks like lime & soda and J2Os, or sometimes a half pint of ale, with a garlic and thyme burrata or lemon and crayfish open sandwich.

Then we’ve got the destination people who have driven out here to have a really good bottle of wine and a chateaubriand.

Of course, we’ve had some walkers come in, sit down and say ‘I like it here’, and then two bottles of wine and two T-bone steaks later they’re asking for a taxi!

The team

We have five, principle, front-of-house staff, including our son Lewis who manages the bar, and food and wine service manager James Lumby, who was born and bred in the area. Together with up to six part-time staff, they aim to offer a relaxed but professional style of service.

In the kitchen, we have head chef Michael Smollett who came to us from The Old Thorns hotel in Liphook. Like us, he wanted to swap the high pressure environment of a hotel for the slightly more relaxed pub lifestyle while still offering a high-quality guest experience. Working with him in the kitchen is second chef Tyler Springer and two other full-time chefs, backed up by up to five other part-time staff.

The drink

Local ales are our main offering behind the bar, with Hampshire breweries including Flower Pots, Triple fff, Alfred’s and Flack’s well represented in a regularly changing line-up. We also offer 16 different gins and counting.

Our eclectic wine list was compiled by our daughter Georgia, who gained a degree in gastronomy while we were in France. She’s currently living in Australia but is always on hand to advise on any changes we might want to make to the list.

The list offers wines from across the globe as well as those produced much closer to home. In fact, a target of ours is to have a wine from as many different Hampshire vineyards as we can on the list.

Of course, having spent 17 years in Burgundy we do have a few nice specials from that region on the list, including some produced by friends of ours.

The food

Our menu changes with the seasons and is based on the best local ingredients Mike can lay his hands on.

We don’t do the usual starters, mains and desserts because we wanted to do something totally different. So all our dishes are designed for sharing, family style and are served as they’re cooked, to the centre of the table.

This is going down very well because some people have a big appetite, some people have a small appetite, and it means you can have six flavours in one lunch.

It also means the working environment is fantastic in the kitchen because this style of service is much less labour intensive.

Another way in which we’re a bit different is that we don’t have a children’s menu because we believe in the French way of encouraging children to eat the same as their mum and dad.

The events

We have street food trucks that set up in the car park every other Tuesday. Each week it’s a different offering, ranging from Indian to burgers, filled flatbreads, and buttermilk chicken burgers.

We only invite street food traders who are independent and offer an artisan, quality product that’s different to our own offering.

The kitchen isn’t open on Tuesday nights because we like our staff to get a whole two days off in a row, so they finish on a Sunday and come back in on a Wednesday morning with smiles on their faces, ready to go.

The future

We’ve still got lots of work to do to restore the pub’s original features, with the next project being to renovate the old skittle alley so we can put it back into use.

We also have a rather unique feature inside the pub: a 300ft well with a 250-year-old treadmill that powers a bucket pulley system. The well, which is twice as deep as the height of Winchester Cathedral, actually predates the pub by around 400 years: it was cut by hand over 800 years ago and, remarkably, the candleholders used by the well diggers are still in place up the sides.

It takes a two-mile walk in the treadmill to lower the bucket and bring it back up again.

We want to restore the treadmill so that in the future we can use it for charity events.

A longer-term project is to build cabins in the grounds to provide guest accommodation because being able to offer rooms will make all the difference to the viability of the business.

The goal is to have between five and eight cabins each offering a double bedroom with en-suite, kitchenette, lounge and a log-burning hot tub, all offering lovely countryside views.

Given our background, a lot of people thought we were going to do again what we’ve done before, but our goal is just to build a really good name for ourselves as a place of quality.