View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Lincoln Institutional Repository THE PUBLIC HOUSE IN THE RURAL COMMUNITY Claire Louise Markham A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Lincoln for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2014 Abstract This thesis seeks to explore and understand how people perceive and experience the village pub. There has, over the course of time, been a general decline in the social and economic importance of the village pub as well as in their number. The decline in number has accelerated in recent years and been the focus of much media attention with some reports claiming that it has negative consequences for rural life (see, for example, Hill, 2008; Scruton, 2006). Despite this there has been very little social science research conducted on this topic. This research helps to fill this knowledge gap. By using empirical data, principally collected in villages in Lincolnshire and from various groups (mainly newcomer residents, long-standing residents and publicans) to explore multiple representations of the village pub this thesis provides an in-depth exploration and interpretation of the values underpinning the research participants’ representations and experiences of the village pub. In doing this, the thesis shows that village pubs are seen and experienced as adding value of different kinds – economic, social, and cultural, and that the different groups attach different levels of importance to these kinds of value. It also shows that, whilst the different kinds of value can work in the Bourdieusian interpretation as capital, and be self-expanding and inter-convertible, they can also work to undermine one another. By showing how the village pub is seen through the lens of nostalgia and the rural idyll and that contradictions exist between how the village pub is remembered or imagined and how it ‘really’ is, this thesis contributes to rural studies literature and, more specifically, to that which engages with the cultural turn as well as to pub literature. The thesis also offers a contribution to practice. It does this first, by imparting knowledge, to different groups, on the types (economic, social and cultural) of diversification that can be used to help sustain village pubs, especially in Lincolnshire; and second, by showing those groups that beliefs and practices around diversification have important consequences for the sustainability of village pubs. i Acknowledgments This thesis is the product of five years of researching the village pub. Over these five years I have received support from many colleagues, friends and family and I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to each and every one of you. In particular, I would like to thank my three academic supervisors: Professor Peter Somerville, Ms Catherine Bochel and Dr Gary Bosworth whose support and guidance has been exceptional. I would also like to thank the Lincoln Graduate School, the Lincoln School of Social and Political Sciences and the Lincoln School of Business for their support and research facilities. Part of the thesis (namely some of the findings from the social and cultural chapters) has been published (Markham, 2013) in a book chapter. I would like to thank the editors Peter Somerville and Gary Bosworth for this opportunity. I would also like to thank the Social Policy Association for uploading my conference paper (Markham, 2011) onto their website for open access. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to all of the participants who gave up their time to be interviewed and who helped make this research possible. ii Table of contents Abstract …… i Acknowledgements …… ii Table of contents …… iii Table of figures …… iv List of tables …… iv List of abbreviations …… v Introduction …… 1 Chapter 1 - Literature review …… 6 Chapter 2 - Methodology and methods …… 27 Chapter 3 - Theoretical contextualisation: Representations of the rural and representations of the pub …… 63 Chapter 4 - The historical field of the English public house and its regulation …… 83 Chapter 5 - Bitter-sweet transformations: Rural enterprises …… 112 Chapter 6 - The village public house: A social hub …… 134 Chapter 7 - The village public house: A cultural icon …… 165 Chapter 8 - Halting the decline of the village public house …… 195 Chapter 9 - Conclusion …… 224 Bibliography …… 248 Appendix 1: First version of aide-memoire …… 277 Appendix 2:Letter sent out to publicans …… 280 Appendix 3: Project leaflet …… 281 Appendix 4: Village chart …… 282 Appendix 5: Re-worked aide-memoire …… 289 Appendix 6: Copy of the participant consent form …… 291 iii Table of figures Figure 1: Age banding of participants …… 49 Figure 2: Participant breakdown …… 51 Figure 3: Villages …… 52 Figure 4: Number of pubs in the villages featured in this research …… 105 Figure 5: Interrelated reasons behind the decline of the village pub …… 115 List of tables Table 1: Concepts, categories and the core category …… 55 iv List of abbreviations BBPA - British Beer and Pub Association CAMRA - The Campaign for Real Ale CPRE - Campaign to Protect Rural England CRC - Commission for Rural Communities DEFRA - Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs NTE - Night-time Economy ODPM - Office of the Deputy Prime Minister v Introduction This thesis seeks to fill an evident gap within social science literature by looking at the subject area of the public house (more commonly known as the pub, and hereafter known as the pub in this thesis) in the rural community. More specifically, it seeks to understand how rural inhabitants and connected actors perceive and experience the village pub. In doing this it argues that the village pub represents a site of economic, social and cultural importance to some rural inhabitants. Consequently, the thesis provides an in-depth exploration and interpretation of the values (outlined above), which underpin the research participant’s representations and experiences of the village pub. At this point it is important to mention that the thesis looks at the issue of declining pub numbers from the perspectives of the participants. Thus it does not purport to analyse the impact of PubCos on rural pub numbers but rather seeks to outline and explore how research participants, namely the publican interviewees, saw them. This is also the case in relation to issues including, inter alia, supermarket competition, and government legislation. Social drinking establishments have been a feature of villages for centuries (Brandwood et al., 2004; Jennings, 2007). During this time they have become known, amongst members of the general public, for their social capacity as much as a place to purchase refreshments. In spite of this, an extensive review of the literature highlights there is little academic research on the social or cultural milieu of these establishments. The village pub, in particular, has been a much-neglected feature of social science research. This is surprising given that there has been a significant decline in the number of pubs (including village pubs) across the country. The decline, particularly of village pubs, has caught the eye of the British media (see BBC News Online, 2010b; Leach, 2009). There exist differences of opinion 1 regarding the causes of the decline. Whilst many media sources (see Daily Mail, 2011; Kingsnorth, 2005; The Sunday Times, 2008; Wilby, 2008) speculate, they generally fail to substantiate their claims with anything except circumstantial evidence or hearsay. A similar scenario occurs in relation to the impact of the decline on villages and their communities. For example, different opinions and views are disseminated throughout the British media (see Hill, 2008; Scruton, 2006), but with little to no evidence to substantiate the cases being put forward. As a consequence, it is difficult to understand why there has been a decline in the number of village pubs, the impact the decline is having, particularly on rural communities, or what can be done to halt the decline. It was as a consequence of the above that this research took place. Empirical research was used to address the gaps that exist in our current knowledge on the different values (economic, social and cultural) ascribed to the village pub. Data from a series of semi-structured interviews was used to develop an exploratory framework of the relationship between these values and how they impact (individually and collectively) on images and experiences of the village pub. The thesis is divided into three sections. The first encompasses the literature review, methodology and methods chapter, contextualisation chapter, and the historical chapter. These four chapters ‘set the scene’ and act as the building blocks for the rest of the thesis. The literature review (chapter 1) highlights the significance of terminology, identifies and gives justification for the research topic. Chapter 2 details the methodological decisions made during the research process. The chapter opens with a brief discussion on how I came to choose grounded theory before going on to look at the influence and impact of my personal characteristics (e.g. lived experience of the rural, gender, age) on the interview process and collected data. Following this it discusses and justifies why the Glaserian approach to grounded theory was adopted. Included within this section is a discussion of what I 2 understand reflexivity to be and how this is inherent within the chosen approach. The final section of the chapter describes the methods and sampling techniques used for the fieldwork. Included in this section, inter alia, are a discussion on the relationship between the researcher and the research topic, a discussion of the grounded theory stages in practice e.g. site and selection of participants, the approach and negotiation of interviews, methods for making notes, the coding process including the reasoning behind chosen categories and sorting process and how these processes resulted in the emergence of the core category of ‘adding value’.