Holly Bush, Little Leigh

A three-room, timber-framed, thatched former farmhouse built 1793. It was held for many years until 1999 by the same family and thus experienced little change. Originally there was no counter and one stood by the door to the servery to order drinks which were fetched from the cellar in the past. A piece of wall in the passage around the servery was removed in early 2000 and a small counter installed. A small new bar-back has replaced old shelves. A latch door with ‘7’ on it leads into the front bar which is barely altered with a screeded floor, an old continuous fixed bench all around the room with a baffle / draught screen by the original front door, a 1930s brick fireplace, almost inglenook in style and with a log fire. What looks like originally a window is now a tiny counter /hatch and scrubbed tables with drawers add to the atmosphere.

Two other small rooms are retain a historic ambience. The front lounge has ‘1’ on the door, a 1930s brick fireplace and post-war fixed seating and disused front door. Up two steps is the snug, a small room with half-timbered walls, which would have been an over-spill room in the past. The former living room on the rear right, with a latch door, has been converted into a lounge and in a new extension is a dining room. The outside gents' has been converted to the cellar and a new gents' (still outside) built.