Why are pubs dying? Competition from supermarkets? The high cost of a pint in a pub? The drink-drive laws have hit the rural pubs. No-smoking-rules stopped some trade. The asking price of a pub rockets when a pub makes way for several houses. McDonald’s and Tesco have taken over sites in Oxford. It’s a perfect storm leaving the wreckage of some 15 pubs a week in its wake throughout the UK.

A better question might be: Why is one pub being re-born? The Fox at Tiddington on the A418 between Wheatley and Thame changed hands several times, turned into an Indian restaurant and finally closed last November. The death throes were protracted. Few improvements had been made since the sixties. It was recently condemned.

The roof leaked and water would get into the electrics, blow the internal lights and plunge the pub into darkness. Diners and drinkers were ushered out and told to go home.

An old log burner would malfunction and blow smoke out into the dining area. Customers gagged and again people were asked to leave.

Oxford Mail:

Inside

The ‘beer run’ was very long because the ‘cellar’ was in the old coaching barn separated from the pub in the stable yard. Rats used to gnaw through it.

The pub lost a lot of beer. The customers lost confidence.

Now the pub will re-open on November 6 after a complete overhaul, renamed the Fox and Goat. It could have been called The Latter Day Lazarus.

The people responsible for this resurrection are members of the Shrimpton family who run a farm in the neighbouring village of Great Haseley. The farm has been in the family for centuries. The whole family is involved, saw the potential and took the plunge. It’s been a struggle since January this year when they started to renovate the building, but now 10 months later the prize is within their grasp.

When I met them on site, Jo Shrimpton was holding a paint brush and Jim a hammer and saw. These weren’t props. They were working flat out to transform the pub with the help of local craftsmen.

Unexpected hazards emerged in the refit. Jo and Jim decided to strip back the beams that were painted a garish gloss and discovered some joists had been eaten by rats.

The pub has been completely re-wired by a local Wheatley firm. The kitchen is now ‘state of the art’ and the new ‘cellar’ is in the pub with a short beer run.

Everything has changed including the pub sign designed by Joanna. It’s black and white with the image of a fox and a goat. Joanna explained: “According to the deeds the original name of this pub in 1748 was the Three Goats Heads and that continued through the 1800s. We wanted to connect the past and the present, hence the Fox and Goat.”

They’ve also connect with a good business plan to create two luxurious en suite bedrooms and supply a second strand of income. So the pub should be able to stay open even in any lean times with the support of the B & B.

The Fox and Goat has been given a new makeover that cost between £200,000 and £300,000 and the final tally is not yet in.

It has also cost the owners one year of constant graft, even on weekends, from purchase to opening. But the next-door neighbour with a front-row seat on the whole spectacle, including noise and dust, did not complain once. People in Tiddington are getting their pub back and no price is too high.

The Shrimptons may own the freehold; they may have the vision of a local pub in this village, but they entrusted a Thame family running a local business, Oak Taverns, to turn that vision into a day-to-day reality. Simon Collinson is a director of Oak Taverns. He said: “The Fox and Goat will be a classic English pub, traditional with good quality. We run the Cross Keys in Thame and the Rising Sun in Haddenham, and have around 20 pubs; so we are local and people know us.

“I want it to be known as a pub that serves good food, rather than as a restaurant that serves beer.”

I asked Simon if he would have goat on the menu and he didn’t hesitate: “I can’t foresee it, but never say ‘never’.

“We will have three cask beers – one from a brewery just around the corner in Long Crendon, the XT Brewery.

“All their beers have numbers from XT-1 to XT-9, from light to dark. Then there is the national Sharps brand and a guest beer. The first guest will be pumpkin ale from Everards Brewery in Leicestershire. The wine list is extensive and the ‘reserve’ wine list will be very good quality, top of the range.

“I want the pub to be something that everyone in the village will be proud of, and I want the pub to put £10,000 on the house price of everyone in Tiddington. “If the Facebook response is anything to go by, people are ready for this pub. We got 3,500 clicks within 24 hours when we put the first posting up about 10 days ago.

“We have been staggered by that response for a village pub.”

Passions are running pretty high here. Clearly a pub is not just a pub; it’s part of the local DNA.