Berkhamsted pub unveils plans for new garden bar after securing longer opening hours

The Old Mill on London Road will now be able to serve alcohol and play music until midnight on Christmas Eve, and until 1am on New Year’s Eve, into New Year’s Day.

The popular pub is also planning to open a bar in its garden area, where it already has permission to sell alcohol.

Four nearby residents objected to the application, so the pub’s owners decided to abandon plans to stay open until 3.30am on New Year’s Eve.

Piers Warne, a solicitor representing The Old Mill, told councillors at a licensing meeting on Monday (2 June) that the garden bar would be a horsebox “plonked” into the area. He added that the garden bar had already been used “without complaints” through temporary event notices.

Mr Warne said: “This was, when it was taken over in late spring last year … very rundown. It had run as quite a successful pub some years earlier and then a succession of tenants unfortunately found it very difficult to operate.

“Covid didn’t help, of course. It’s a big site with big gardens and that takes a lot of upkeep and I’m afraid the last tenants found themselves … a bit out of their depth. When they left, the place was in a pretty awful state.

“It took around £400,000 plus to get the pub up to the standard it is now. It opened in July 2024 and it has been very successful and I don’t think we should make any apologies for being a successful business.

“It now employs 15 people which is fantastic. It is used by lots of regulars, the residents do come to the pub regularly.”

Mr Warne said the outside bar would help the pub meet the licensing objective of preventing public nuisance by ensuring there was always a staff present in the garden, meaning customers would not have to carry drinks from an inside bar into the garden.

He added that it was a “misnomer” to believe that opening a garden bar would lead to people drinking more.

The garden is subject to an earlier closing time than the pub itself.