THE people of Upper Farringdon showed their love of their village pub by turning up as a 60-plus work force on Sunday to help new owners Debbie and Steve Newton “deep clean” the early-19th Century Rose and Crown which has lain empty since February.

Deborah admitted: “When I saw the turnout it brought tears to my eyes and we had another 60 who apologised because they couldn’t be there, plus lots of good wishes and thanks from the community after we bought the pub.”

At first, she and Steve, who recently sold his water services business, couldn’t decide about buying The Rose and Crown.

“We kept changing our minds but the reason we moved into the village in 2006 was because of the pub, as the local boozer is close to my husband’s heart.”

They also realised what an important part the pub plays in local community life - “Especially,” said Debbie, “now we don’t have a village hall and we have a lot more houses being built in the village and it needs some kind of social centre.”

When former owners, Enterprise Inns put The Rose and Crown up for sale there were several attempts to buy it - one by a group wanting to run it as a village association but they all fell through so the pub went up for auction on September 7.

“The actual sale was very quick,” said Debbie, adding: “Once the gavel went down it was ours and we got so many good wishes and thanks for saving the pub as well as offers of help to give it a good clean, as it was in a bit of a state having been empty for so long.”

So Sunday saw the work party, organised by Debbie and Steve’s friends, Rob and Nicky Jarman, set to deep cleaning the cellar and kitchen and clearing the wilderness that was once the pretty pub garden.

On Monday, the builders moved in to start refurbishing the pub, said to have been built in 1810 by Jane Austen’s wealthy brother, Edward Knight, as an ale house.

Debbie and Steve hope to be open before Christmas: “We want it to be a village pub again and we will make sure there is a balance between the bar area for drinkers and the restaurant.”

Debbie said: “We won’t be serving food till after Christmas, although I am already interviewing a chef and sous chef. What we want to provide is not posh but good quality, tasty food, with ingredients from local sources and at reasonable prices.”

The couple have no plans to be behind the bar pulling pints and will be appointing managers to run the pub, “although we will be in to help if needed”.

The Newtons, who have four grown up children, have four dogs and one, a slightly elderly bull dog called Stanley, has been adopted as the pub’s mascot and looks set to be a regular at the bar.