Home | Events | Campaign | News | Action | Steve | Contact

Campaign

Ye Olde Cherry Tree is to the residents of Little Oakley - a small village in North East Essex - their primary meeting place at the heart of their village. It is the only pub in the village and is the focal point since the relocation of the village Post Office.

It is an ancient pub built on a site once occupied by a large cherry orchard and mentioned in the Domesday Book.

It has long been a pub with an excellent reputation for atmosphere, good beer and good food - particularly in the ownership of the late Steve Chandler and his wife Julie.

It has won many awards and continues to attract people from far and wide - people looking for a real English pub at the heart of its community.

It seems to surprise some of the new breed of carpetbaggers who want to squeeze every last piece of change out of community pubs when the community bites back and says "no" but this is exactly what happened in Little Oakley.

To find out more read on ..

On Wednesday 9th February 2005 Ye Olde Cherry Tree, Little Oakley closed for business.

The leaseholders at the time, pub management company Inn2gether, gave two reasons for the closure:

• The pub was being closed for maintenance following storm damage to the roof and general refurbishment, including the garden.
• The pub was not meeting targets and the managers had resigned.

Story (1) was spun to the press when they contacted Inn2gether for comment. Story (2) was given to the staff – officially (and verbally) only on the day of closure.

Furthermore staff were told that they were would not be getting any redundancy pay and were not actually employed by Inn2gether but by the managers who were actually self-employed - this is certainly not what the staff had been lead to believe!

Indeed this was just one of many strange paradoxes relating to Inn2gether’s operation.

So – if you don’t know Ye Olde Cherry Tree very well you might be forgiven for thinking what is so strange about this story – after all lots of rural pubs have closed in recent years.

Well – Ye Olde Cherry Tree is not just any old rural pub it is an award-winning gem with an extremely strong local following and visitors from far and wide. In recent years, under the ownership Steve and Julie Chandler, the pub has collected awards and commendation and sports an extremely impressive CV:

• Voted Colchester & N.E. Essex CAMRA Overall Pub of the Year in 2000 and 2001.
• Voted Colchester & N.E. Essex CAMRA Rural Pub of the Year in 2004.
• Voted Homefire National Pub Fire of the Year in 2000.
• An annual Beer Festival is held in June with 20 or more real ales on offer.
• Support for many community and charitable events including the Tour de Tendring – the pub team raising well over £1000 each year.

The puzzle then – just how do you close a busy and highly respected local after just 5 months?

The campaign urged supporters of the pub to put that question to the directors and management of Inn2gether. Many did so - as well as contacting Colchester and N.E. Essex CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale), the local press, local M.P. Ivan Henderson and Tendring District Council.

On Friday 3rd March 2006 the pub, once again, closed its doors for business with no date for reopening.

To find out the sequence of events that define such a traumatic time in the history of this lovely old pub please see our news page.