LOCALS are worried about the future of a traditional rural pub, as the popular couple who have been running it successfully will be pulling their last pints tomorrow.

Ken and Lea Dury will be leaving The Old Fox in School Lane, Bricket Wood, as their attempt to buy the freehold from Punch Taverns has been outbid by an unknown buyer.

The pub has a chequered recent history, at times plagued by rowdy trouble-makers from the nearby Meriden estate in Watford, and its previous managers were evicted last summer, unable to keep up the rent.

But locals told the Review that since Ken and Lea arrived in February the pub has thrived, with a warm welcome extended to hikers, dog-walkers and horse-riders enjoying the surrounding woodland and Colne valley.

Dave Russell said: “The way Ken and Lea have been treated has been disgusting.

“They have done a great job here. There's a really friendly atmosphere – it's a great place to come for a drink.

"I don't know what the new owners are going to do, but I hear they've never run a pub before.

“We don't want all the rowdy youngsters coming here like a few years ago, or all the real ale being replaced by lager.

“Or they may just want to live in it as a house."

Fellow drinker Arthur Warwick said: “Ken and Lea have turned it back into a proper pub with proper beer. Now it may go downhill again."

Ron Barnfield, of Garston, who like most of the regulars walks to the pub, said: “We will certainly all be very sorry to see them go.”

Lea told the Review: “We don't bear any ill will to Punch Taverns or the new owners, whoever they are.

“We always knew we would be given ten days' notice if a buyer was found.

“We would have loved to buy the pub but these other people just had a bit more money than us.

“It's a shame, but that's life.”

But she said they would not be interested in running the pub as tenants under the new owners and would try to buy a freehold elsewhere.

John Berry, of the South Hertfordshire branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra), said: “The new team were promoting real ale and had tripled the beer order in nine weeks.

”It is understood that the pub has been sold to an Irish couple who have never run a pub before.

“Is this the last opportunity to visit The Old Fox as a proper pub?”

The Review has asked Punch Taverns who the new owners are and what assurances it can give about the pub's future.