The George is a Grade II listed pub, thought to be 500 years old, sitting within the conservation area of a historic market village in East Suffolk. When a fire partially destroyed the building in 2013, local people formed a community benefit society to buy and restore it as a community pub and social enterprise.
They spent 10 years fundraising: 450 community shareholders contributed over £400,000 and we awarded £1.8million in Heritage Enterprise grants.
The project’s volunteers estimate they spent 10,000 hours seeing the restoration through to completion. The building’s historic features, including wooden beams and bricked-up staircases, were uncovered and restored. A new extension adapted the building for modern commercial use, including a kitchen and accessible toilet.
A new lift was added to the first floor community space, where local residents meet for weekly activities including a wellbeing café, exercise classes and a community choir.
The volunteers also traced the pub’s history for displays in the building, researching landlords dating back to 1746.
The George reopened in September 2025, creating several new jobs in the rural village. That year the team won a Rural Community Business Award and was joint runner-up in the Campaign for Real Ale’s (CAMRA) Pub Saving Awards.
Colin Owens, project lead of the venue's management committee, says: "It's run to the benefit of the community and now we're open it's proving to be quite a success. The volunteer group raised in excess of £2m to complete the project and restore The George to be much more than it was – to be more than a pub."
Find out more about other projects we've supported in the Midlands and East.
