A community’s attempt to save a pub used by Dambusters legend Barnes Wallis when he trialled his ‘bouncing bomb’ has been boosted by German donors.
World War II hero, Wallis, is said to have drank and lodged at the Elm Tree Inn, nearby Langton Herring, nearby to where the wartime inventor conduct his secret tests.
After 300 years of trading, the tavern which had also been visited by Winston Churchill closed in 2023 – but three months ago the community launched an initiative to save it.
To bring back the watering hole, the Friends of the Elm need to raise £650,000, to buy and run the pub, with half already been raised through a share issue, where investors can buy £1 shares.
Among those who have put their money where their mouth is in hopes to save the pub is a German couple from near Dusseldorf who visited Langton Herring last year. It is believed they purchased a minimum of 200 shares.
Despite their valiant fundraising efforts, locals still have a remaining £300,000 to source to save the tavern for the village which has lost its post office, shop and bus service in recent years.
Although the task ahead is no easy feat, campaigners are confident they will be able to gather the remaining few hundred thousand to buy and run the pub for generations to come.
A community’s attempt to save a pub used by Dambusters legend Barnes Wallis when he trialled his ‘bouncing bomb’ has been boosted by German donors
World War II hero, Wallis (pictured), is said to have drank and lodged at the Elm Tree Inn, nearby Langton Herring, nearby to where the wartime inventor conduct his secret tests
Locals have so far raised over half of the £650,000 total needed to save the pub and are confident they will reach their target
Nick Carroll, chairman of the Friends of the Elm Tree, said: ‘We recently received our approval from the Financial Conduct Authority which meant we could launch our share issue in the village hall.
‘It was very successful and was standing room only.
‘We have received support from all over including France and Germany. My son’s girlfriend is German and her parents visited the pub last year and they liked it very much and have bought shares.
‘The shares are £1 each and the minimum spend is £200 and the maximum is £65,000.
‘We had a family who bought £1,000 of shares and divided them between their five children. We also had someone buy £20,000 of shares which is the largest amount.
‘You can only trade within the pub so if you wanted to sell them they would be bought by someone in the pub.
‘By about the third year of trading we hope to be able to pay back about 3 per cent interest. We expect people to hold on to them indefinitely and pass them down through the family through wills and the like.
‘We are about half way there and we have the raise the rest by the end of March which we hope to do by crowdfunding.
After 300 years of trading, the tavern which had also been visited by Winston Churchill closed in 2023 – but three months ago the community launched an initiative to save it
Langton Herring is one of just 13 ‘doubly thankful villages in England and Wales in which no soldier from the village died in either world war
There is also a small plague saying saying ‘We shall never surrender’ in reference to Winston Churchill and a horse chestnut tree planted in his honour in the village churchyard
‘There are very few grants that we can apply for because they require a huge amount of work in terms of form filling. We are a small village with a steering committee of seven volunteers and we don’t have the time for that amount of paperwork.’
Wallis visited the area near Langton Herring which is one of just 13 ‘doubly thankful villages in England and Wales in which no soldier from the village died in either world war, at the end of 1942.
That year, the British engineer began conducting plans for a bomb that could skip across water in a bid to attack three dams in Germany’s Ruhr valley, as Brits believed it would greatly disrupt German war production.
He used the five-mile long lagoon called The Fleet, that sits behind Chesil Beach, to conduct his top secret tests.
A modified Wellington bomber repeatedly flew in low over the body of water before releasing the bouncing bomb which skipped across the surface.
The experiments were so secret that even the men at a naval gun emplacement nearby were not aware of it and started shooting at the aircraft fearing it was an enemy attack.
The Dambusters raid, also known as Operation Chastise, saw 53 of the 133 aircrew killed, while 1,300 people on the ground died as a result of the flooding.
While its was a morale boost for the people of Britain, its affect on German industrial impact was limited, according to the Imperial War Museum.
Wallis conducted plans for a bomb that could skip across water in a bid to attack three dams in Germany’s Ruhr valley, as Brits believed it would greatly disrupt German war production
The Dambusters raid, also known as Operation Chastise, saw 53 of the 133 aircrew killed, while 1,300 people on the ground died as a result of the flooding
During the Cold War the famed tavern was also rumoured to have been a secret rendezvous point for Russian spies
In the village of Leighton there is a small plague saying saying ‘We shall never surrender’ in reference to Winston Churchill and a horse chestnut tree planted in his honour in the village churchyard.
During the Cold War the famed tavern was also rumoured to have been a secret rendezvous point for Russian spies.
Harry Houghton and his girlfriend Ethel Gee worked for the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment on nearby Portland and would wait for calls from their KGB controller at the pub.
In more recent years the Elm Tree Inn was turned into a high-end gastro pub and achieved the prestigious AA Two Rosette award.
But in November 2023 its owners, the Electric Pub Company, announced it was closing due to the ‘challenging operating environment’ and ‘declining trade and profitability’.
Anne Kerins, 68, has lived in the village for 25 years and is one of the eight-person committee organising the plans.
She said: ‘The pub has been here since the 1700s and was just the absolute centre piece of the community.
‘The residents are really struggling without it as everywhere else you have to drive to and there is no bus service.
***
Read more at DailyMail.co.uk