Five Bells Inn Whitchurch Canonicorum is brewery's youngest

Joanna House, 22, has taken over the Five Bells Inn in Whitchurch Canonicorum, this week's Bridport News Pub of the Week, and is proud to be Palmers Brewery's youngest ever landlady.

The former waitress has worked her way up since she started serving locals at the Five Bells at the age of 13.

She said: "I carried on working evenings and did bar work there and just carried on working there.

"Pat, the previous landlady, had been there for 27 years and reached retirement age and said she was going to retire.

"As the position had come up, I thought 'I'm going to kick myself if I don't do it.'"

Joanna outside the Five Bells Inn (Image: Supplied) Overseeing the pub means a lot to Joanna - she grew up on a farm just three quarters of a mile away - and she is proud to be working in her local community. 

"I'm a home girl," she said. "Doing this means a lot to me, growing up on a farm, it's so nice to be landlady of the local pub, which to me is a proper country pub."

The Five Bells was shut for just a week to be redecorated before Joanna took over.

She has already introduced a regular Ladies Supper Club and hopes to start up a quiz night from January and hold other themed evenings. 

"I want it to be a proper community pub, a place where people can come and have a chat and a gossip," she said. 

"It has been a bit busier than it previously was. I was amazed that more than 300 people turned up to our fireworks evening."

Inside the Five Bells Inn (Image: Supplied)

A new menu has been introduced offering traditional pub favourites including lasagne and fish and chips.

Home-cooked pies have also been introduced in a Pie of the Week concept, something that Joanna is particularly proud of, with mouth-watering flavours including steak and ale and chicken, bacon and leek. 

Joanna describes the interior of the pub as having a 'country cottage feel with a sage green colour scheme'.

It has traditional features like hunting horns on display, an open fire and old pictures of the pub on the walls dating back to the 1800s.

Come the warmer weather, a campsite is open at the Five Bells from Easter onwards.

Inside the Five Bells Inn (Image: Supplied)

Joanna certainly knows how to keep busy - she also works as a part-time accountant, using her extensive farming knowledge to do farm accounts for Old Mill. 

Although it's only early days, she has grand plans for the pub going forward.

Described as a ramblers' paradise, locals and visitors alike are always made to feel at home.

"My aim is for it to be the hub of the village with lots of events going on and for people from the area to come in and see other people and have a nice time," Joanna said. 

"We've got a broad range of people in the village and it's nice to have that mixture in the pub."