We have just had a very encouraging Progress Meeting with The National Lottery Heritage Fund – our major funders. Although we have not yet achieved the full required funding we have demonstrated to them how this will be achieved, despite an inflationary increase in expected costs. We anticipate the Heritage Fund will soon confirm they can […]
George Quiz Night, 22 July 2022 Shunning the rival minor attraction of Latitude, over seventy quizzers filled Wickham Market Village Hall on Friday night to flex their mental muscles and, at ‘halftime’, enjoy a ‘brain-food’ fish and chip supper. There was also a raffle with an eclectic range of prizes, and the bar was well-frequented, […]
Following Permission to Start (PTS) by the Heritage Fund on 23rd February, the Professional Team were mobilised and started a 16-week period to prepare the detailed designs necessary for inclusion in the Invitation To Tender documentation (ITT) for the Main Building Contractor. The team was enhanced with an Interior designer, lighting designer and landscape designer […]
The George Management Team have been delighted with the response received from our share offer to date. Share investments received are approaching our minimum target but we are also aware of a number of potential investors who have pledged support but need more time to prepare . We have decided therefore to extend the offer […]
A great party night was held in the Village Hall on 11th March in celebration of the National Heritage Fund Grant Award. Dancing to live music from the wonderful Biscuit Brothers and a pop up bar made for terrific evening. Below are some pics.
Following our exciting grant award of £988,200 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, restoration of the historic George Pub is now within our grasp. Our target is to raise a total of £340,000 of which over half has been promised through a pledge campaign last year. Once converted pledges will narrow the gap but we […]
Thankyou to everyone who volunteered to become a member of the George User Group. Everyone who has volunteered is being welcomed to the User Group with a tour of the George and a presentation on the project. The User Group will play a vital role in supporting and advising the Management Committee on decisions which […]
Join The George User Group and play a vital part in how The George Pub will look and feel. We have been awarded a National Lottery Heritage Fund Grant and we are on our way to restoring The George Pub. We are looking for approximately ten volunteers to form a George Users Group to represent […]
We are fantastically pleased to announce that our application to The National Lottery Heritage Fund for a Heritage Enterprise Delivery Phase Grant has been approved. Thanks to The National Lottery Heritage Fund and the country’s National Lottery players, a grant of £988,200 will provide the largest part of the funds required to allow us to reconstruct […]
Following our successful planning application we want to clarify the type of pub The George will be, what makes a community pub and the anticipated dates for building works and pub launch. We are currently finalising our presentation to The Lottery Heritage Fund for second round funding which will be submitted later in August. We […]
What a day! Remember this date the 29th June 2021. England beat Germany in the Euro’s but the biggest winners were here in Suffolk where East Suffolk Council unanimously granted planning permission for the restoration of the Wickham Market Grade II listed George Community Pub. This is a significant milestone towards the opening of the […]
The George Community Pub planning application (DC/21/1942/FUL and DC/21/1943/LBC) was submitted to East Suffolk Council on 21st April with comments on the application invited by 2nd June. We are currently awaiting the outcome of the Council’s planning decision which is expected by end June. Fingers crossed!! Many thanks to everyone who submitted comments in support […]
April 2021 Report on The George project presented at the Annual Parish Meeting The George Management Committee were pleased to be invited to submit a report for the Wickham Market Annual Parish meeting which was held on 12th April. The report summarises the objectives of the project and what we hope to achieve. It also […]
There has been much support for the George Community Pub in Wickham Market but none more so than from Alexander Nicoll our County Council representative. Alexander has supported many community projects in Suffolk and for ‘Saving the George’ he has always been willing to stand up and promote our message through the media and other […]
In April 2020 we decided to carry out a survey of what people wanted in terms of food offerings, beer choices, how often people eat out, what activities they wanted to see in the pub, whether they wanted a micro brewery, etc. Because of Covid 19 restrictions we were limited to doing the survey on […]
We are almost there – just one last push! We are within reach of being able to restore Wickham Market’s historic George Inn into a wonderful, welcoming pub, restaurant and community space. To achieve this we need to ask for your support in the form of a pledge (see Pledge form below) The National Lottery […]
How would you like to see your pub? The results of the Christmas Card questionnaire are in, including colour preferences for the building and options for the front garden, cycles and wood fired pizza oven. Alongside these questions there were many other comments all of which are summarised in this report. Thanks to everyone who took […]
A Christmas Card designed by George Hering and Bill Wolff-Evans from our team, was distributed to all households in Wickham Market prior to Christmas. It also contained a brief survey on what colour people would like to see the George painted, whether to have a front garden, and whether to have a pizza oven. Results […]
Good progress has been made recently with appointments of key consultants to the project team including an Acoustician, Structural Engineer, Mechanical & Electrical Engineer, and Access Advisor. See below for more information about what the consultants will be doing for the project, We have also had an asbestos survey – with no problems – a […]
A post on our FB page today to say thankyou Huge thanks to Heritage Fund, National Lottery players, our supporters, shareholders, and grant givers for making it possible to get our project to save The George underway. We still have a long way to go but with your help we have made a great start. […]
Exciting plans for fire-hit Suffolk pub spelled out, seven years after blaze Click here to read the article in the EADT of 6th October about the George
September 2020 – Concept Designs have been completed An important milestone has been achieved with the completion of the Concept Designs for the George. The plans show how the ground floor will make the most of the important heritage of the building with the public areas of restaurant and lounge bar taking centre stage in […]
Annual Progress Report A year of adjustment, celebration and key appointments – not forgetting a virus! Despite everything the year saw major progress towards our goal of restoring The George as Wickham Market’s Community Pub. A successful second application and a Lottery Heritage award has enabled us to assemble the project team of professional architects […]
The George presses on We hope that all our friends and supporters are keeping well and safe. Although the current circumstances have meant that we have not been able to hold planned events for you to enjoy and to allow us to keep you up-to-date with progress (but see below), we have not been idle […]
An inaugural meeting was held between the Management Committee and the Greenwood Projects team on the 24th February and work has now commenced to assist the Society to appoint the other consultants necessary for us to prepare a detailed design for reconstruction and other documents necessary for us to make our Round 2 Heritage Fund […]
The Management Committee would firstly like to wish you all a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. We are very pleased to report that we received formal Permission to Start (and our first, advance grant payment) from the National Lottery Heritage Fund on December 13th. Before Christmas, we issued Invitations to Tender to nine Project […]
We are pleased to announce that our MP, Dr Dan Poulter, will be at the Party on the 26th and will be giving a short speech of welcome at about 8pm. Other guests who have accepted our invitation include our County and District Councillors and representatives of More Than A Pub and Power to Change. […]
By George, we’ve got it! We are fantastically pleased to announce that our application to The National Lottery Heritage Fund for a Heritage Enterprise Development Phase Grant has been approved. Thanks to the Heritage Fund and the country’s National Lottery players, a grant of £82,000 will allow us to develop our plans to reconstruct the […]
After many hours of hard work by Committee members, we submitted our new Heritage Enterprise application, for the major part of funds needed to bring The George back to life, by the deadline on Tuesday 28th May. This was in accordance with our Members’ wishes as expressed in the Options ballot in February. Our application […]
We’re going again! The result of the recent ballot of shareholders was an overwhelming yes to apply again to the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) for a grant to help restore and rebuild the George Community Pub. Of the 72% return 204 shareholders voted in favour of reapplying with only 28 against. The George Committee […]
As most of you will be aware The George Community Pub (Wickham Market) Ltd now own the Grade11 listed George Pub and to be able to restore the building have applied for first round funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Unfortunately, our first application failed which is not unusual. We have since met with our […]
In September we received news from the Heritage Lottery Fund that our grant application for funding had been unsuccessful. We will now ask the shareholders to vote on whether we re-apply or not depending on further discussions with our case officers at the regional office of HLF in Cambridge. It may mean we will need […]
You may have noticed that work to tidy up and make secure the site of the Grade 11 listed George Pub has begun. The George Community Pub (Wickham Market) Ltd and its 321 members are now the official owners and are actively seeking a conclusion to the long awaited work to restore the building. The […]
On the 30 July the George Management Committee initiated our option to buy the George Pub from the current owner. The date for completion has now been fixed as the 12th September ’18 when all shareholders (members) will become owners of the George and this exciting community project. The sale of shares is ongoing and […]
The threshold of £100k which enables us to purchase the pub has now been reached and we are well on our way to achieve the £300k target. In ten weeks £120k has been raised from 277 investors, a wonderful result. It’s a big milestone and to all those who have invested in shares many thanks […]
The Share Offer remains open but the decision to buy the pub or abandon the project must be made no later than 27th July. We are now less than £10k away from crossing the line and being able to proceed. If you wish to invest or raise the level of your application to help take […]
IMPORTANT SHARE INFORMATION We are pleased to inform you that we are now over halfway to reaching our minimum share target of £100,000. Share applications are coming in steadily on a daily basis, but the deadline of 23rd June is fast approaching. We know that many more supporters are planning to invest but haven’t yet […]
Please join us for our Pop up Pub on 2nd June with guest speaker Bernard Lee. See details below
Please see rhe EADT article about the share launch on 12th May which was a huge success. Great publicity for the project.
SHARE LAUNCH SATURDAY 12 MAY 2018 on the Hill. Please join us for 20 minutes at midday, Saturday 12 May on the Market Hill where we will be having a big share launch photograph. If we are to achieve our aim of restoring the Pub we need to show as much support as possible. This […]
It has been announced in the EADT that Nicholas Jacob Architects, who have prepared the conceptual designs for the new George based on our community’s hopes and needs, and are currently assisting us with our HLF Heritage Enterprise grant application, have also helped the Harwich Electric Palace Cinema to apply for and be awarded the […]
One of the reasons why the share offer has been unavoidably delayed has been that Committee members Bill, Colin, George, Mike and Tony have been hard at work, preparing, submitting and revising the documents for independent assessment for the Community Shares Standard Mark. They have been assisted in this by Helen Melia, a business adviser […]
Come join us in the Village Hall for the next Pop Up Pub on April 28th when we are thrilled to be joined by Apryl from Kiss Karaoke! The Pub will open at 7pm and entertainment will start at 7.30, it promises to be a great evening! Many of you might remember Apryl […]
The launch date for The George share issue has been delayed until after Easter. We’re really sorry about this but it is due to circumstances out of our control. Sorry to keep you on tenterhooks but we’ll be back soon with the revised launch date.
The vital last funding to enable us to launch our share issue and prepare our application for the major grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund has be awarded to the Society by the AHF on the basis of an application prepared by the Committee. The Project Development Grant of, up to, £7130 match funds equally-appreciated contributions […]
More than 130 local residents attended a presentation held by the George Community Pub team on the afternoon of Saturday 10th February. The purpose of the presentation was to bring everyone up-to-date with the work that had been carried out in determining the future of the George as a community Pub. Chairman Colin Owens led […]
The George Quiz Night Gather your team, and join us on Friday 23rd March in Wickham Market Village Hall. 6.30pm for 7pm Tickets £10 per person, including a Fish and Chip Supper from the Flaming Fryer Choice of meals include Cod & Chips, Chicken & Chips, Sausage & Chips and Veggie Burger & Chips. Bar […]
Do you want answers to the following questions? Can we buy the Pub, and if so what will we be paying? Can we rebuild the pub and how much will it cost? Where will the money come from? Why does heritage and conservation matter? What do we need Community Shares for? What will the Pub […]