Historic Gorebridge pub hopes to serve up takeaway food

A pub has lodged plans to convert part of its historic building into a hot food takeaway, after work began without approval.

New Hunterfield Tavern, 119 Hunterfield Rd., Gorebridge.

Plans to turn part of Hunterfied Tavern in Gorebridge into a new takeaway with its own entrance door were submitted retrospectively, with work already under way. The pub owners told planning officers that initial advice from the council was that no planning permission was required for the change.

The pub, which is known locally as the Goth, and is overseen by the Hunterfield Tavern Gothenburg Trust, opened as a Gothenburg pub at the start of the 20th century and was originally owned by the Arniston Coal Company. Profits from the popular drinking spot helped fund the building of a picture house in the 1920s.

Although no longer a Gothenburg pub, based on the principle of putting profits back into the community, the pub aims to serve locals in a different way with the new takeaway, which will see a new double door entrance built in the end gable of the building with new windows.