ONE big family, that is how the staff at the Rose and Crown in Rangeworthy hope to make you feel.

The country pub in a village with no shop is the focal point for meetings, events and charity fundraising whilst serving up real ales and ciders and offering honest hearty food.

Landlady Yvonne Hulbert, who has run the Rose and Crown for 22 years, has recently bought the pub turning it into a freehouse.

“It makes it better for the customer as we can have different beers and try different things,” she said. “We can give them more of what they want.”

Yvonne, who ran the pub with husband Martin until he died after a long battle with cancer in 2013, said the Rose and Crown did not pretend to be anything more than a comfortable, friendly local.

“We are a pub which does food but we are not a restaurant,” she said. “We do good pub grub and it keeps us very busy.”

She added: “Pubs have got to be valued by their community. A village with no pub has no heart.

“We hold a big fundraising day every year and always raise money for someone local. Everybody joins in together and people make it a main part of their life where they come to the pub and join in.

“We also host the annual village beer festival and are a meeting place for the WI and football club.

“We are really like one big family to be honest.”

She said entering the Gazette’s Pub of the Year competition had not been a chore.

“It has not been something we have had to force on people,” said Yvonne. People have been coming in saying they are going to vote for us.”