Pub named region's finest

7:55am Thursday 11th October 2007

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An award winning Heronsgate pub has been named as the finest pub in the East Anglia region and is now vying to be named UK pub of the year by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).

The Land of Liberty, Peace and Plenty has stood in a quiet corner of Heronsgate since the mid Nineteenth Century.

It is named after the revolutionary, though ultimately calamitous, Chartist settlement of O'Connorsville (named after Fergus O'Connor) which used to occupy the surrounding land.

Current landlord Martin Few and partner Gill Gibson took over the running of the popular one bar pub in January 2005 after an exhaustive search for suitable premises.

Mr Few said: "I was originally a van and lorry driver but always had a passion for real ale. In 2004 Gill was made redundant and both wanted a change. We started thinking what can we do together?' "We both had a love of pubs and beer and had very similar ideas about what a good pub should be like.

"In short, we wanted to run the kind of pub that we would want to go in and return to as customers. We've been in so many pubs around the country that we know what a good one is. We also know what a bad one is.

"The number one thing that we wanted was that it had to be a free house because we both had a passion for beer. We found this place in June 2004 and took over in January 2005.

"In the two years we've been here things have gone really well - many of the regulars have come back and we've doubled our turnover."

Already a double award winner for the best in Hertfordshire, the pub is currently being judged against dozens of other regional winners before it can go forward to the UK finals in February of next year.

Mr Few added: "The awards are a recognition of our hard work and mean a great deal to us."