ABSTRACT
The public house, or as it is known to many ‘the pub’, has been a feature of the English landscape for hundreds of years. It can be summed up as ‘a place where you can buy a drink and drink it without the obligation to do anything else, such as buying a meal’ (Gorham, 1950: 16). Although it has unequivocally undergone some change in terms of its appearance, what it retails and the custom it attracts, it continues to play an important role within society. The focus of this chapter is on the social and cultural roles of the public house in rural localities. It starts with a brief contextualisation of the decline in number of rural public houses before proceeding to focus on how and why this establishment remains socially and culturally important. Additionally, the economic role of the pub cannot be overlooked, as, in reality, this role is interwoven with the social and cultural roles. The chapter will draw principally upon interview data conducted as part of an ongoing grounded theory doctoral study (Markham, forthcoming) to emphasise the importance of rural public houses. To complement the findings, examples and comparisons from existing public house and rural sustainability literature will be utilised.
