Our Story
An independent historic pub run by mother and daughter team Bron and Lucy. Both moved to Chedington in 2020 to escape London weeks before the Covid lockdown. They loved it so much they haven’t returned, and both have swapped City jobs for running a village pub.
Both live in the village, together with their exceptionally spoilt cocker spaniel, Scout, and their husbands Nick and John. You'll find John behind the bar.
A pub full of history
Originally known as the Three Horseshoes, on the edge of the delightfully unspoilt village of Chedington, The Winyard's Gap Inn has an interesting history. A public house has stood on this site for over three hundred years, overlooking the glorious Dorset and Somerset hills.
Winyard's Gap was immortalised by Thomas Hardy in his poem A Trampwoman's Tragedy. Hardy ranked the poem highly amongst his works and came to believe that it was "upon the whole his most successful poem."
The current name comes from General Winyard, who blasted his way through the area to move heavy artillery. In 1651, Charles II found himself on the run in Dorset and the route is commemorated with a long-distance path which leads through Winyard's Gap. Seven years prior, his father, King Charles I, led his troops through the Gap during the English Civil War.
After the First World War, the National Trust donated 16 acres of land close to the pub for a memorial to the 43rd Division of the Dorsetshire Regiment.