THE TOWN’S Riverside Inn, which had been derelict for over a decade, is set to begin a new chapter.

Charlie Baker and Rebecca Pickup have thrown their life savings into renovating the derelict pub in Wye Street.

“It was a last-minute decision to enter the online auction,” Charlie said last August, having only managed to secure a viewing the previous evening.

Rebecca explained that to finance the restoration of the Ross-on-Wye pub, their immediate plan was to convert the wooden hut on the site and turn this into a café.

Charlie added that within days of the couple acquiring the property they received so many positive comments about saving this once much-loved pub.

The new owners were amazed at the amount of support they received when they opened their café three months later.

The couple said that they had visits from their neighbours, who were very complimentary about what they were doing and wished them well.

One visitor included a Peter Crocker, now aged 92, who spent the Second World War living at his grandmother’s house, Swan Villa, now known as the Riverside Inn.

Mr Crocker said: “It was terrible how it was left to rot and decay for so long. It excites me to see that other people are prepared to save buildings such as this and make them viable for the 21st Century.”

Mr Crocker explains that his grandmother’s family, the Baynham’s owned Swan Villa, and the property next door, Ivy Villa.

He said: “As a nine-year-old I recall my own family being bombed out of the house we had in Gloucester at the outset of the war.

“We, my two brothers and I, along with my parents, stayed at Granny Baynham’s home in Ross. It was idyllic. I was so far removed from everything on a day-to-day basis, that I didn’t really know the war was on.”