WORK on restoring a Dorset pub has been granted planning permission.

Dorset Council has agreed the plans for the historic Grade 2 listed Bottle Inn at Marshwood which once served the West Dorset village as a shop and a school room.

The works include new thatching, replacement windows and doors, ground-mounted solar panels and the removal of a rear chimney stack and relocation of a flue.

The owner of the early 18th century Bottle Inn at Marshwood, Mrs Tessa Blundy, who has years of experience in renovation, bought the site in February 2023, the pub having been vacant since 2019.

The building, once a turnpike cottage, had become a pub on the Crewkerne and Lyme Regis road by the 1870s when it was named the Bottle Inn to reflect that it was one of the first to sell beer in bottles.

Among the external plans for the site are planting two rows of hedges and bringing in two Beech trees to replace a pair of Ash trees which had to be felled.

Said a planning agent for the owner: “The pub is of widely acknowledged communal significance, having been a longstanding community hub…It was designated an Asset of Community Value in the most recent Upper Marshwood Vale Neighbourhood Plan (2019). The building is clearly worthy of conservation, which will involve some works subject to listed building consent, in order to secure its future.”