Dorset pub is first to include a village store and post office (From Dorset Echo)

Dorset pub is first to include a village store and post office

3:00pm Saturday 4th February 2012 in Local News

A country pub has become one of the first in Britain to run a village store and post office within its premises.

Sue and John Barker didn’t want to see the life sucked out of their village after the original post office and general stores closed because they were no longer profitable.

So they cleared out an old cellar at the back of the Three Elms Inn in North Wootton and turned it into a small grocery shop.

They then won approval from the Post Office to extend the bar with a separate counter for the purposes of receiving letters and parcels and handing out pensions.

John, 50, and Sue, 57, have now been given special training and have become the sub-postmasters, shopkeepers and pub licensees.