THE couple who run a country pub has said they have "absolutely nothing to hide" after receiving a one out of five food hygiene rating. 

Tony and Jo Digweed, who took over as managers at the Kings Head in Redlynch in December 2020, are expecting the rating to be increased to a four-out-of-five in only a matter of weeks following a recent reinspection. 

Tony and Jo said the pub lost points for the water being out to a handwashing station at the time of inspection, and problems with the sealant on one of the refrigerators. They also claimed the inspector would not accept the pub’s paperwork at the time.

The inspector has since revisited the establishment and noted that all problems seen in the first inspection have been properly addressed.

History

Tony and Jo are expecting the rating to be increased to a four-out-of-five in only a matter of weeks.

Having met in a pub that Jo was working at in the early noughties to improve her social life beyond her job as a primary school teacher, the pair had always wanted to buy a pub later in life.

When Tony was forced to leave his successful security consultancy business in the United States, they went forward with their next dream.

Tony and Jo moved back from Florida in 2018 after technicalities with their visas following a crackdown on immigration by the Trump administration.

Their first pub was the Crown Inn in Fordingbridge, and wanted their next place to be a quiet, authentic country pub.

Jo said: “We drove past [The Kings Head] a lot of times and had seen it thought it was a lovely little pub, really nice.

"We had never been in, and then we came in and just fell in love with it because it’s just an out-in-the-country little eater and that’s what made us buy it.”

There was a lot of work to do at the old pub, and Tony and Jo took advantage of the covid lockdown to clean and renovate the 300-year-old building.

What is now the front patio used to be the car park, and the back garden was neglected, filled with large old birdcages from a long-gone aviary.

Jo said: “We’ve made a lot of changes to it. None of this existed. None of the back garden existed. During the covid break, we basically made all of this. We went from 45 covers to 211.

“Out in the back was a scrapyard and we dug the ground up to make the garden and there were bird cages and all sorts under the ground.

“We used the Covid time to actually do something with the pub. We painted the pub. We did it inside and out.”

As a family pub, Tony and Jo's children, 17-year-old Phoebe-Ella and 15-year-old Owen also help out at the pub.

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The King’s Head Inn’s chef is 38-year-old Russell Haydon, whose background consists of multiple hotel restaurants in Northern Ireland, including Galgorm Manor.

The King’s Head Inn is only the second pub at which Russell has ever worked, and he said he enjoys the slower pace compared to life as a hotel chef.

He said: “You don’t have to get up at silly o’clock in the morning. You don’t have to get up at five o’clock in the morning to do breakfast and stay there until 11 o’clock at night.

Tony and Jo were dealt a blow on July 6, when an inspection by the Wiltshire Council led to a one-out-of-five hygiene rating, although the authorities said that food was being handled to a “generally satisfactory” standard.

Jo said the pub had “absolutely nothing to hide,” and that she and Tony had full confidence in Russell’s run of the kitchen.

Russell and other employees have also undergone additional allergen training beyond what is required by law.