A landlord who owns a small country pub says each year he spends thousands in maintaining a tradition that can be traced all the way to 1845.
Peter Parsons runs this pub with his wife Janet, and they claim that fire has been burning in the hearth continuously for the past 174 years.
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Every morning Peter shakes the ash from the glowing embers then chucks on another few logs to get it roaring again. He does it even during the summer.
He said: ”it’s a fairly easy process’ to keep it going. At night you bank the fire down, put ash on top of it to keep the heat in.
In the morning you shake it off and put a couple of logs in and off it goes. You have to get good quality timber – it’s more cost-effective. It’s not a roaring fire all year but it’s always there. ‘There’s always someone on the premises [to watch it].
It’s too isolated a pub to leave empty.”
The pub is located in Dartmoor National Park which was built in 1845 when it replaced the original building which stood on the opposite side of the road. The second fire which burns in the winter is extinguished in the summer so it doesn’t get too hot.
Peter has previously said: ”Some days are more difficult than others, if the logs are wet or the wind isn’t drawing properly. People appreciate knowing it will always be on when they come in.”
”They even come in during summer to check it’s still going – to check I’m still going perhaps – but it always is. Even in those two days a year we can call summer it’s going – even if it’s just chucking a couple of little logs on to keep it smoldering.”
He said that he doesn’t know how much it actually costs but estimates the logs cost him ‘thousands’ of pounds a year.
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