A country pub near Abingdon has closed its doors at short notice.

The Harcourt Arms Hotel, in Nuneham Courtenay, which is owned by the Wellington Pub Company, stopped trading late last week amid claims rent had not been paid.

It is the only pub in the village, which sits astride the A4074 road to Dorchester, two miles beyond the Oxford ring road.

Pauline Peasley, 54, and her husband, Tim, 51, who had run the inn for nine months, were given two weeks' notice to leave, when Wellington's agents, Criterion Asset Managements, called time on their tenants, the Great British Pub Company.

It operated from Chester until it went into liquidation last September. The couple have now moved back to the Three Pigeons, in Milton Common, near Thame, taking some of the staff with them.

They previously had the lease of the Three Pigeons from another pub group, Punch Taverns, but soon gave it up when they found they could not make the business pay. The couple then bought the lease of the Harcourt Arms for a token £1 from the Great British Pub Company.

Their brief tenure was not recognised by Criterion, which said that as far as they are concerned, the managers of the premises were the company Criterion let them out to on a long lease. The agency's operations manager, Peter Gullis, said: "Mr and Mrs Peasley were not tenants of ours, but may have worked in some capacity for the previous tenant we let the lease to. Rent failed to be paid and therefore we sought possession."

Mrs Peasley is now leasing the kitchen and the 38-seat restaurant at the Three Pigeons from Cavalier Pub Holdings, which leases it from owners Punch Taverns.

She said: "We bought the lease of the Harcourt Arms for £1, but it should not have been sold to us without the letting agents' permission.

"We took on a 'dead' pub. There were not many houses around, and most of it is passing trade. No more than two dozen from the village used to come in.

"The new people will have to build it back up again, but it will cost whoever comes in £100,000 a year to make it pay, what with £62,000 for the annual rent, £10,000 for the business rates, and £1,300 in council tax."