Landlady Sarah Aston-Davies walked into The King’s Head pub in Bedminster Down 12 years ago with two young children. Now, as the pub in which she lives is set to close its doors forever, she’ll be walking out with two teenagers, as well as more than a decade of memories, and an enormous extended family of pub locals.
The pub will be open as usual until the doors close forever after its New Year’s Eve celebration. After that, the pub and the land it sits on, including the car park, are to be sold off to property developers and will likely become homes.
As she prepares to bid her beloved home of the past 12 years farewell, BristolLive caught up with Sarah to reminisce on times gone by and chat about what the future holds for her, and her loyal King’s Head locals.
If you have memories and/or photos you’d like to share of The King’s Head over the years, we’d love to see them – send them to [email protected] and we may even feature them in a future feature.
Sarah says: “It’s not just been a business, it’s been our family home. And the people, the locals, they’ve become part of our family. I’ve watched their kids grow up, they’ve watched my kids grow up. It’s more than just a pub.
“I’ve been in the trade a lot longer than this place as well. This wasn’t my first pub, but it is the longest one I’ve been in. Yes a lot of it is food-led, but the important part about this pub is the community side.
“We have people who rely on us, not in a negative way, but they rely on us for the community part. During the week they might not actually speak to anyone else. When we first came here, we promoted that aspect of giving it back to the local community, and not just having it as a restaurant.
“It’s obviously a multi-faceted business and it always has been. We’ve hosted a lot of funerals being close to the crematorium. You’ve got massive offices over the road. I mean, the amount of comings and goings we’ve seen across there – new starters to leaving dos, and stuff like that. Then obviously airport runs – I see the same people year after year on their yearly holidays, and they literally say ‘we’ll, see you next year!’ I think that’s quite nice.
‘It’s killing me’
“Some have been doing that and stopping off here for the past 10 years, without fail, and the first thing they say to me when they return is ‘you’re still here’. A lot of other pubs chop and change a lot, don’t they?”
Sarah continues: “Our pub is old fashioned like that. It’s how it used to be. I’m 38 now so I was young when I came in here. But for people in older generations, taking on a pub was the life-long thing. They’d take it on and that was it, the only way they’d leave would be in a box.
“They knew that that was what they were doing. Whereas now, they take on pubs and they’ll be there a couple of years and then move on. It’s quite sad really because you never really get that sense of community then.”
When it comes to her pub, and why locals keep coming back, Sarah says: “Everyone’s got their own reasons to come here. I know a lot of people who have met in this pub. We’ve had people come back here and tell us they got married here in the skittle alley, 40 years ago. They come back because this is where they met or where they got married or where they dated, or that sort of thing.
“It’s filled with memories. And Bedminster Down, as well as the pub, is a close-knit community. Lots of generational families are still here, living within houses of each other, or roads from each other. They’ve never left the area. So that’s nice. I don’t know how to explain it – we are what we are. But we’re quite unique within the pub trade now.”
Sarah feels that the pub’s tight knit community is certainly like an extended family. “One of my locals had to bring his daughter in on her prom night because she wanted to show us her prom dress,” Sarah adds. “She’d been coming here, as a little one, in the beer garden or coming in for a meal with the family, and her dad is a local, so she wanted to show us, to show me. It’s the little things like that that make it, for me.
“And a lot of the locals here have treated my kids – who are teenagers now – like family. They’d buy them Christmas and birthday presents, give them change to spend at the shop, and things like that. One of my locals even used to sit there on the table with them and help them with their homework. They’ve treated them like their grandchildren – they still do now.
“You don’t get that these days. And I’m going to miss it. It’s killing me.”
‘It doesn’t feel like a job’
When it comes to what Sarah’s going to do next, she says she is hoping to stay within the industry and possibly get behind the bar of another local pub in the future. “I don’t know what else I’d do,” she tells us. “My whole career has been around restaurants and pubs and hospitality. So I am looking local and there are a couple of pubs that have caught my eye.
“So I will be staying local in a pub – I’m just not sure which one, yet. I’d like to stay in this area. It would probably be a slightly smaller pub. I think the time of the big pubs, unless its managed, is gone. Part of the reason the owner is selling The King’s Head is because of the size of the pub and the amount of land. For safety and security nowadays, I think if you take on a smaller pub, it’s less likely to be sold off for good.”
Sarah says that no matter which pub she chooses next, she is determined to be in it for the long haul, and will work just as hard to create that same King’s Head style of community there, too. “I want to create that family, community vibe – it’s really important, when it’s our whole life, our social life, and our work life,” she adds.
“I’ve been lucky that I’m one of the few people I know who completely loves their job, and it doesn’t feel like a job because I enjoy it. So it’s important that the person fits in with the place, and not every pub will fit with the person. Before Covid, I used to have several pubs under my belt at once – in my 15 years in the business, I think I have had about 13 pubs, or so. So I am calling this next step 50/50 excited and apprehensive.”
Sarah wants The King’s Head’s final farewell to take place on New Year’s Eve so her extended family can celebrate and remember the pub in all its glory, before marking a poignant end to the year, and end of an era. But she admits it’s not going to be easy, and it will strike up emotions.
“In times of crisis, people have used pubs to come together,” she says. “And my pub is a safe house, a sanctuary, and I always take pride in myself for that fact. New people moving in down the road, after a week they tell me that we have made them feel like family. And to me they are.
“They’re not a number, not just a face, not just a customer, they’re a human being and we want them to join in, and be a part of the family. And this is what we’re losing in the pub trade nowadays.
“I can tell you the name of most of the people that come into my pub. I can tell you what time they’re in, what date, their kids birthdays, and their anniversaries and, most of the time, I’ll be the one reminding them about their Christmas shopping – and whether they’ve remembered their wife!
“When the pub shuts, don’t get me wrong, many will find somewhere else to go. Life will go on. But I think for some, The King’s shutting is heart-breaking, and a loss for the community.”