Wargrave Landlady Becomes Brakspear’s Longest-Serving Licensee
Forty-six years after she took the keys to The Bull in Wargrave, near Maidenhead, landlady Jayne Worrall has become pub operator Brakspear’s longest-serving licensee. And despite the many challenges facing the industry, she has no imminent plans to call time.
Jayne is in her third ‘life’ at The Bull, having started at the pub in January 1980 after an eight-year career as cabin crew with BOAC (later British Airways). In 1884 she moved to another Brakspear pub, The Rising Sun in nearby Witheridge Hill – where Rod Stewart once fed caviar to her cat – but returned to The Bull in 1998 and stayed there for 10 years before a move to south Devon. In 2013, she moved back to Wargrave for the third time.
She says, “The Bull draws me back whenever I leave. It’s a wonderful pub supported by an amazing community and I’ve had such happy times here.”
The pub industry has changed ‘almost beyond recognition’ in Jayne’s near-half century working in it. She says: “In the 1980s, everyone went to the pub for lunch – and that usually included at least one beer. We were regularly serving 40 lunch covers, which seems unbelievable today when most people are grabbing sandwiches to eat at their desks.”
Other changes are for the better, including relocating the ladies’ toilets from the garden to inside the pub. She says, “In winter, I’d take a kettle of water out to unfreeze the toilet pan. That’s something I don’t miss!” That move was one of many refurbishments made on Jayne’s watch, which have expanded and transformed The Bull while keeping its historic character; originally a 15th century coaching inn, it was bought in 1779 by brewer Robert Brakspear for £850, as a place to sell his popular beer.
The Bull continues to do a steady trade, which Jayne attributes to support from the local community support, fostered during her four decades at the helm. “The affection local people hold for the pub has seen us through many ups and downs, including Covid; when we were closed, I was selling 70 takeaway portions of fish & chips on Friday and Saturday evenings and 100 roasts on Sundays.” Sunday lunch at The Bull has become something of a local legend, and Jayne has won Brakspear’s Best Sunday Roast award, as well as Pub of the Year in 2003 and a Director’s Award back in 1998.
While Covid cemented The Bull’s place at the heart of Wargrave, it also led to a fundamental change in pubgoing habits, as Jayne explains: “After lockdown, people’s socialising shifted. Now, we’re busy at 6.00 and by 9.00 or 9.30, the pub can be almost empty. We’re taking the same money, just earlier in the evening than pre-Covid.”
Jayne remains cautiously optimistic that pubs will survive the current challenges, as they have previous ones, but more support from government is desperately needed. She says: “I’m very proud to be running a pub, it’s a quintessentially British institution; I’ve travelled all over the world and their bars are fine, but they’re not like our pubs. So it makes me sad that so many pubs are having to shut their doors.
“Running a pub is a way of life, and we love what we do – but we can’t keep doing it if we’re losing money. The government’s movement on business rates is welcome, but we need more lasting support that recognises the vital importance of pubs to their communities.”