Community raises over £90,000 in pledges to buy and reopen their beloved local pub

A community’s fight to buy and reopen their beloved local pub has seen pledges of over £90,000.

The beautiful 19th Crymych Arms in west Wales closed during the pandemic after its owners, Bill and Meima Evans, decided to retire after running it since 1984.

The tiny Pembrokeshire village community were so heartbroken at the loss of their local that they began crafting a business plan that would see the pub reopened and owned by themselves instead of being sold on to developers.

The Crymych Football Club New Club House Steering Group was formed to raise the funds to purchase the Crymych Arms as a new Club House and volunteers have been working hard on the necessary business framework.

So far £91,600 of pledges have been made by people wanting to have shares in the pub’s ownership.

Fables

Myths and fables of Wales from times gone by have mentioned the historical area with stories such as the ‘Dream of Macsen Wledig’ which tells of the Emperor of Rome, ‘Magnus Maximus’ known in Wales as Macsen Wledig who had a vision of a beautiful young woman with whom he could fall in love.

He found Elen in Caernarfon in north Wales and made her his wife and whilst there the Emperor made camp at Frenni Fawr hill near Crymych and to this day it is known as Cadair Facsen the Chair of Macsen.

Macsen Wledig is now an important figure in the Football song of Dafydd Iwan as the football fans sing ‘Yma o hyn’.

A public meeting regarding the purchase of the pub was held just before Christmas and a new community pub purchase committee was formed to oversee the fundraising.

Next week a further meeting will be held to discuss the community purchase and locals are encouraged to volunteer to help with the legal, marketing, accounting and business development work involved in such an ambitious community purchase.

The west Wales community development charity, PLANED has been supporting the community to collect share purchase pledges over the past 6 weeks.

Significance

Local community councillor, Cris Tomos of PLANED said: “The Crymych arms was probably the site of the first building in Crymych and has historic and cultural significance.

The public meeting will be held on Monday the 6th of February at 7pm in the Crymych Market Hall.