Calling Time

Shame to see the passing of any village pub falling by the wayside, but it hits home harder when it has been one of your favourite watering holes.
According to newspaper reports The Village Bells in Eling, just a few miles outside Southampton is set to close its doors for the last time as a pub this weekend.
Word is that the 200 year old inn is to be converted to a private house.
True, I have not visited for a while, but time was when it was a regular lunchtime spot just five miles from the office and where you could rely on getting good interesting food at a reasonable price.
Sadly, at that time even, the then landlord told us the pub just did not have sufficient clientele to keep it viable in a time of rising costs.
Now, according to my local newspaper reports time is finally to be called at the inn.
It was always a quaint but homely pub and to get to it by car from Southampton you had to cross and pay a small fee at a toll bridge near Eling Quay.  The Village Bells stands just across the road from its rival, the King Rufus, and maybe in these days and times two pubs in such close proximity in a village with a tiny population are likely to end in tears for one of them.
I always preferred The Village Bells and in the days when I wrote a regular eating out newspaper column, was the subject of one of my earliest reviews.  It went on to become a favourite spot and a regular port of call.

Maybe I am being a bit nostalgic, but it brings a tear to the eye to see a place you have known so well disappear.