Suzi and Glen Chadwick have been landlord and landlady of the Church House Inn at Churchstow for almost eight years.

They are tenants of St Austell Brewery and the Church House is a Casque Marque pub.

It was built as a rest house for Benedictine monks from Buckfast Abbey.

The pub has a long and interesting history as Suzi explained: “Allegedly it dates back to around 1250.

Obviously it's had pieces added to it as time's gone by and pieces have fallen away so the bottom end of the pub fell down in the 18th century or possibly before and was rebuilt from the same stone as four tenements so it's one up one down and the identical fireplaces are still there.

“A couple of years ago we had an elder lady in her 90s who came in and she can remember sitting in one of the windows of her granny's tenement looking out of the

well in the days when you didn't have tap water so that's where the water came from and legend has it that there are tunnels in there that lead to the church (St Mary’s across the road which dates from the 14th century) and another tunnel that leads from here to beyond we're not quite sure as obviously it's all silted up now and apparently the legend has it that there's a tunnel going from the church to Whitehall Manor as well.

There have also been stories that the pub is haunted as Suzi told us:

“It is a very old building and obviously we all leave our energy everywhere and when we first came to this pub there seemed to be a very negative energy and I felt that somebody didn't want us to be here.

“We had all sorts of things going wrong so I called in a friend of mine who's a medium.

But just before that we had glasses flying off the shelves, sudden floods in the gents' toilets, we had customers who'd had a few drinks getting very, very angry but it would always be at the same table.

“The medium came in and the first thing she said was, it's like being in a silent disco. “There are so many layers of people in here who don't know that the others are in here and it is so busy.

“The table with the issue with the person making everyone angry was apparently a chap called Francis and he was from the 18th century.

“He didn't like 21st century women so he was always trying to intimidate women, which I can vouch for actually because at night when we closed up I would go upstairs and I would feel like there was someone on my shoulder really trying to intimidate me.

“We had another incident with a lady who apparently was a Puritan lady, her name was apparently Margaret and we put new curtains up after about three months and one morning after I just put them up I went to adjust them and stood on the window ledge and I physically felt someone push my shoulder and force me off.

”I come down in the middle of the night to check something's locked or something, but never feel anything.

“But then some people do and some people don't, I think.

Landlord Glen said: “I’ve never seen or felt anything unusual in all the time we’ve been here.

This is a wonderful place but we're just looking after the building, really.

We've tried not to change it, just make it look prettier and function better.

It’s still got the long bar and you can see from here that it with the whole bar area was split into two portions which obviously is now open and we've also got a table here our hexagonal table which legend has it that it actually came from the church across the road but we'll still argue about that and that's still with us today and it's a beautiful table.

“As far as the regulars we have a mixed bunch of young and old and medium, so yeah, it's all good.”

With around fifty pubs closing a month in England and Wales, what is the secret of running a successful establishment?

“I think the accommodation has helped and we’ve got four rooms.

“Otherwise it would have proved a little bit more difficult because we're not in the town centre, so we need to attract people who don't mind driving and the rooms certainly help. and you know the food is important and the service so hopefully we get all those three things right.

Another attraction that is always popular when winter arrives is the coal fires.

“There’s two of them we light on a regular basis and there's a double-sided one that just burns wood when we're really busy.

The pub is versatile when it comes to welcoming groups.

“Well, we're quite fortunate and I think that's one of the reasons why we are able to keep going is that we're quite a large pub and we've got several different areas to accommodate all sorts of different groups.

“So this evening we've got an 80th birthday party going on round in the restaurant, we've got the conservatory at the weekend, we had a big birthday party in there, and then we've got the snug as well so we can do more intimate dining, that's for up to 10 not to mention the three beach huts that are well used in the spring and summer.

“So we're very fortunate, we've got lots of different areas for people and then we've got meetings that come in here as well on a regular basis, we've got one in this evening as well.”