Haunted pub set to close
News Archive > General > Haunted pub set to close
TIME could be called on one of St Blazey's best known landmarks.The Cornish Arms in St Blazey is under offer and looks likely to cease trading as a pub.
The Church Street hostelry, a former coaching inn, has been a familiar sight next to the village church for more than 80 years.
It's believed that a local builder has put an offer in to St Austell Brewery, the owners of the building, for the freehold. That offer has been accepted (subject to contract) and it's believed that the purchaser plans to convert the premises into private dwellings and apartments.
St Austell Brewery put the pub on the market following a series of incidents in 2008 that saw former landlady Jill Jackson claim that boy racers had made her tenure intolerable with their late night antics and anti-social behaviour in the pub car park, culminating in several vehicles being destroyed in arson attacks there.
Mrs Jackson also claimed that she and her daughter Chelsey were also targeted twice in one night while police investigating the first incident were still on the premises.
The Cornish Arms achieved more picturesque notoriety as a haunted tavern and has featured on many purpose booked 'ghost hunts'.
Pub manager Mark Hilliard told the Voice: "We knew when we took the pub over that the brewery we're going to put it on the market. I haven't heard anything yet, but they have given us an assurance that we can stay until it has been sold."
Adam Luck, St Austell Brewery’s Estate Director, said: "St Austell Brewery has agreed terms to sell the freehold of the Cornish Arms to a local buyer but until contracts have been exchanged we are unable to give any further information. In the meantime it is very much business as usual."
This isn't the first time that a St Blazey pub has been converted to residential units. The former Market Inn, just a few hundred yards from the Cornish Arms, was also purchased by a local builder from the brewery to be converted into flats.
The Voice understands that the former Acorns Nursery building that adjoins the Cornish Arms site is also being targeted by the same developer to include in the radical new development scheme.
