We
THE WHISTLER
The return of The Welly
One block , a great pub on each corner . And it just didn ’ t feel right when The Welly was closed . It felt like a car with one wheel missing . But now the wheel is back on
WEST HILL COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
“ think it ’ s the perfect time , yeah absolutely the perfect time . I mean , we ’ ve got a perfect storm of people who ’ ve really understood what they ’ ve missed over the last year , what everyone ’ s really missed . The people interaction , the community . There ’ s been community spirit , but there ’ s been a lack of opportunities to engage ”.
The Whistler is talking to Paul and Gabby Wimhurst , the people behind the re-opening of The Duke of Wellington - The Welly - and we asked the inevitable question about the risk of opening up during the lockdown . And Paul ’ s on a roll .
“ So I think this is the perfect time because obviously , pubs can play a part in that wider community engagement . So as things wake up , this is how we see it , as people start to shake their heads a little bit and wake up , it ’ s a great time to be opening a pub that ’ s been closed for a year and a bit . Yeah . So yeah , we think it ’ s good .”
Paul and Gabby have been “ running pubs now for about three years up in Soho . Mainly that was The Red Lion in Kingly Street , and we also had The Lyceum on the Strand for a while , so that was our time running pubs , but we ’ ve spent a fair bit of time in pubs ” Doing research ? “ Yeah , exactly .” Gabby was born in Mouslecoomb “ but spent most of my time in and around central Brighton , so we were always knew that we were going to come back to the south coast .
“ We heard about this during lockdown - that was just after Bertie , the previous landlord , decided to move on - and once we knew there was an opportunity here , we grabbed it with both hands . Couldn ’ t wait to get back . All our friends are round here . It felt really isolating being in London , especially during lockdown .”
Round here , if you like pubs this is a good place to be . “ Yeah , that ’ s something that we can ’ t wait to become part of , the pub community . We ’ ve already made contact with everybody . The thing is , they ’ re all good pubs and we ’ re not going to try to compete . For instance , we ’ re not going to do a food offer , and that ’ s probably been driven by the fact that the others do such good food . So rather than try and compete , we ’ re viewing it that we want to complement the pubs around the block , you know .”
And so what is your sell ? What ’ s your USP ? “ We ’ re hopefully just going to build on what it ’ s always been - a great pub for watching
sport and taking part in team sport . We ’ ve also got a great garden which we ’ ve made a bit more comfortable and spent some money on it . We ’ ve got the function room upstairs as well , and hopefully ( mini theatre ) Sweet will be back later in the year , so we ’ ve got the opportunity to … not change the way it feels , but enhance it and maybe just broaden its appeal a little bit .
“ I think we ’ ve recruited a super team , that ’ s something that we ’ re really excited about . We ’ ve got four people who we think are really unique in their own way and they ’ ve all got something really , really great to add . So we ’ re hoping that it ’ s the personalities and the people that people are going to come in for .”