Historic pub in ruins after heavy rain brings down chef’s sleeping quarters

A popular pub had to call last orders after its walls came tumbling down following heavy rain.

The Ship Inn at Cockwood in Devon is temporarily closed until further notice after disaster struck on Sunday morning.

Bad weather led to one of the main walls of the building collapsing onto the street and adjoining land.

It is understood the walls are made from cob, a local building material which is a mixture of mud and straw.

The alarm was raised at around 11.30am yesterday when the side wall came crashing down, taking the chef’s living quarters with it.

Anna Brown, partner at the pub, said: ‘We’ve been here since 2007, this is our family pub and the wall, basically, at about half 11am, the wall behind the the bar fell out, fell down in towards the garden.

‘We are quite shocked. This is a family place, if we thought there was any imminent danger we would not have kept the pub open

‘We cannot open the door until 12:00 so there were no members of the public inside.’

She added: ‘It feels horrendous, this is our family pub, this is our business.

‘We will be back and serving as soon as we possibly can.’

Mrs Brown said the walls had been surveyed in the past and they had no idea they could be dangerous.

The Ship Inn is not the only place counting the cost of the damage following recent bad weather.

A freak tornado left one house in West Sussex without a roof over the weekend.

The terraced property in Littlehampton had the entire top covering of the building ripped off and left strewn across the street.

And much of the rest of the UK has been battered by bad weather in recent weeks.

Parts of England and Scotland faced severe flooding due to Storm Babet earlier this month.

Storm Ciaran – the third named storm of the year – is now expected to bring further disruption this week.

The Met Office has warned that up to 60mm of rain could fall over Northern Ireland and the south of the UK along with 80mph winds.

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