Gawsworth pub tackles social distancing

The Harrington Arms, on Church Lane in Gawsworth, has found a way to safely serve customers – by setting up drinking and dining ‘pods’ in greenhouses in its gardens.

The pub team then decorated each greenhouse with a different theme and with the addition of a festival style tent the pub can now welcome a viable number of customers, after social distancing measures reduced its indoor capacity to just three tables.

The Grade-II listed farmhouse building was constructed in 1664 and is a stalwart of the CAMRA campaign.

With her business partner Andy, landlady Caroline Wightman, has transformed the Robinsons pub’s beer garden into an all-weather dining room.

The five glass buildings are themed on a potting shed, a beach hut, a vintage lounge, a Moroccan riad and a botanical garden.

Caroline, who took over the running of the pub in 2006, said: “It’s proved to be incredibly popular. The phone’s not stopped ringing, Facebook messages haven’t stopped – it’s been a tremendous response!”

“It’s funny what a crisis makes you do. Not in a million years would we have done something like this otherwise. The last few months have been stressful at best. Obviously we’ve never experienced anything like this before.”

“We spent weeks getting ready to reopen, obviously not even knowing when that was going to be. There’s only so much we could do without knowing what the rules and regulations were going to be.

“Social distancing gave us quite a lot of problems inside, but we’re very lucky to have a fabulous outside space.”

You can book a table at the Harrington Arms through their website or follow them on Facebook.