The Packhorse pub sits in the tiny village of South Stoke in the west of
England amid rolling hills dotted with sheep. For more than a century and a
half, it played a crucial role in the village and marked milestones in the
lives of local families. Gerard Coles, who was born half a mile from the pub
and now brews cider nearby, started coming to the Packhorse when he was 15
and underage, sometimes with his school teacher for lunch. "The chap who came
to put in our new gas main said he was conceived in the back garden,"
recalled Trevor John, a retired accountant, who has lived here for almost 30
years. But in 2012, Punch Taverns, a corporation that owns about 1,300 pubs
across the United Kingdom, sold the Packhorse so it could be converted to
housing and office space. It's a familiar story. Pubs close all the time in
the United Kingdom, victims of changing lifestyles and the rising value of
real estate. In fact, locals say the Packhorse would be worth twice as much
as housing and office