Flossie Lane's Parlour Pub

End of an era ?

Flossie Lane Publican

1914–2009

For 74 years Flossie Lane kept the tiny Sun Inn, the pub where she was born in the pre-Roman village of Leintwardine, Herefordshire. As one of only a handful of parlour pubs remaining in Britain, The Sun is as resolutely oldfashioned and unreconstructed today as it was in the mid-1930s.

According to beer connoisseurs, The Sun Inn, although acclaimed as ‘a proper pub’, is actually Lane’s 18th-century stone cottage. There is no conventional bar and no counter. Customers sit on hard wooden benches.

Lane held a licence to sell only beer, served from barrels on the kitchen floor and only recently began to serve wine. There is no till, people put the money in a row of jam jars, one for each denomination of note and coin and, although Lane was never observed to be watching, from her favourite armchair she could tell the difference each coin made as it hit the tin.

Take a flea video visit to Flossie lan's SUN Parlour Pub and join the locals!

Florence Emily Lane was born at the inn, the only girl in a family of five. After their parents’ deaths in 1935, she and her brother Charlie took over the licence and held it jointly until his death in 1985.

In recent years, Leintwardine has lost four of its pubs and inns. Lane, however, was proud of not having kept up with the times and did not hold with modernisation. She enjoyed a reputation as the best-informed person in the village and every evening cheerfully dispensed local gossip to her customers. In Lane’s advanced old age, regulars converted a downstairs room into a bedroom for her, although she slept every night in her customary armchair. The last person out tucked her up! Flossie Lane, who never married, is survived by five nieces, one of whom recently sold the ongoing business to a consortium.

Flea feels our community is under threat with the demise of so many Community meeting houses. Give your vote for the ‘Best Pub around’ – and we’ll do our best to feature their story right here! – ed.

Call 01923 241852 or email the editor at watford@theflea.co.uk

This article was created on Saturday, 26th December 2009.

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