The Down Inn between Bridgnorth and Ludlow is a proper pub, probably as its been in the hands of landlord Steve for 20 years. They have a function room, guest rooms to stay over and a carvery that's on every day.
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00:00So it's love your local time and we're here at the Down Inn just on the outskirts
00:04of Bridge North. Steve you're the skipper of this ship. That's it.
00:08How long you been here Steve? I've been here just over 20 years now. Just a 20 that's all?
00:13Just a mere 20 yeah. You doing anything special to mark the 20? We had a party
00:18actually a few weeks back yeah. Yeah yeah good stuff. What were you doing before
00:21you were here then? I was running pubs in hotels for Mitchell's and Butler's.
00:27The last place I was at was up in Stoke-on-Trent. But it was actually a carvery as well that's
00:32where I got the idea to come over here and do it for myself. Well yeah we should
00:35mention the carvery it looks fantastic it smells fantastic so I'm sure it
00:39tastes good and you do it pretty much every day is that right? Every lunchtime
00:44every evening 365 days of the year yeah. Yeah that's a big ask isn't it to do it
00:48every day. It is but when you're used to doing it you know it goes nice and
00:53smoothly. And has that reputation kind of traveled far? I should imagine you
00:57probably have people traveling from the black country to come over here and have
01:01a bit of dinner yeah? We get people from black country, Telford, Kidderminster
01:04quite a big radius to be honest yeah. You've got a wedding in today? We have yeah.
01:08You've got your nice function room that people can. So if you're on holiday you
01:12at the pool you'd say to someone you run a pub and they would say well what's it
01:17like then go on describe describe the pub to us. Okay it's an old coaching inn
01:21an old country inn rural shopship beautiful scenery around us lovely
01:27locals and it's a nice cozy traditional pub yeah the breweries haven't managed to get
01:34hold of it so it's how a pub should be. Yeah proper a proper pub as we say yeah
01:38you've got some lovely snug areas with these fireplaces as well so that they'll
01:43be coming into their own as the dark nights draw in. Yeah yeah that's one big
01:48bonus yeah yeah they all fight over the tables by the fire. Yeah well I've been
01:53one of those people. What sort of tipples you got on here then? Well all local
01:58ales we've got Ludlow Gold, Hobsons, Wye Valley's HPA all within a sort of 20 mile
02:05radius of the pub and all very good beers all very popular yeah and then we've got
02:09the traditional Carlsberg's and Ciders, Robinson's a popular local cider. Okay
02:15yeah so what's what's the favorite beer that people are drinking is it Ludlow
02:20Gold? Ludlow Gold at the moment that's the in beer yeah. It's a nice drink isn't it? Beautiful. So do you ever get
02:26days off then I mean you know when you're running a pub often it's work
02:30work work isn't it do you get a bit of time for yourself? I do now in the early
02:35days but I've got a brilliant team around me I've got a great assistant
02:37manager Nicky yeah and good head chef Ryan and a brilliant team really so yeah
02:43I could get a couple of days off here and there. Great stuff. Well thank you for
02:46inviting us down the pub looks great and come and get yourself a car for you guys.
02:51Cheers Steve. Thank you very much. So Steve fantastic room the sleigh bed is huge isn't it?
02:58It is very popular. Yeah yeah. So how many rooms have you got here Steve? We've got nine
03:03rooms yeah we built them about must be going on for about 14-15 years ago now.
03:07Okay so there wasn't any any rooms when you first started then? No we had to build these on.
03:12Yeah. Because there's a big demand in the area. Yeah yeah. We were constantly getting phone calls
03:16people saying have you got bedrooms so we thought maybe we should build some bedrooms. Yeah there's a market
03:20for it. So Shropshire it's it's a lot of tourists and that yeah I mean we I
03:25always feel like Shropshire is a little bit off the radar actually and it
03:28probably doesn't get as many tourists as it should but the people that come here
03:33they fall in love don't they? They love it and like you say a lot of people don't even know where
03:36Shropshire is if you go down south but when they come up here and they see
03:40what's on offer around yeah it is a fantastic county. Yeah we're very blessed
03:45here and like you say you're in a stunning spot here with the location. Now
03:49I always wondered when I've driven past the Down Inn where the name comes from
03:53but I've just found out this is the area's called the Down isn't it? It is yeah.
03:56So hence the name got you and you've got a lovely pub sign out there these old
04:01traditional pub signs are kind of a lot of them are disappearing a bit but am I
04:05thinking there's a bit of a story was it a customer that did it for you? Yeah we used to have an old
04:10pub sign up there which blew down so I actually got one of my locals who yeah
04:16he's a bit of an artist yeah he said yeah I'll certainly do your picture so
04:20fantastic that personal touch yeah