Globe, Berry Hill

In recent years the Globe Inn has much improved and it is now a vibrant community pub offering a choice of real ales and good food.

The following article is from a local newspaper is dated 17th September 1965:

‘Mr Len Hughes looks round the unchanging Globe’ – On Sunday morning last, a very upright man of 73, walked into the Globe Inn, Berry Hill and announced that he was born at the Inn, and had travelled from Port Talbot, South Wales, intent on seeing his old home. He was Mr Len Hughes, who was accompanied by his wife, his son and his daughter-in-law. He is a son of the late Mr and Mrs Albert Hughes, who lived at the Globe, where the late Mr Hughes ran a grocer’s and butcher’s business in what is now the club room. He also brewed his own beer which was sold at 2d.per pint. The late Mr Albert Hughes was a member of a well-known family of small pit owners and farmers, his brother being the late Mr Edward Hughes of English Bicknor. Another man who lived at the Inn over 50 years ago is a frequent customer – Mr Sydney Gwilliam, who lives in retirement near the Inn. When Mr Albert Hughes kept the inn it was a free house, and when he left it was sold to Lloyds of Newport, later becoming Yorath. The Globe remains one of the few public houses in the Forest of Dean which have not altered in any major way, although it is understood that alterations are to be carried out soon. Since Rugby started in Berry Hill it has been the headquarters of the club, and until 1928, when changing quarters were built on the new ground, players changed at the inn, having a wash in an outhouse and then doubtless they chatted to customers, who were interested to hear about the history of ‘the pub that doesn’t change’.

In December 1986 the ‘new look’ Globe was opened. It had been bought from Ansells Brewery in October by Phil Smith and John Berry of Newland Estates, Coleford, and they decided to completely gut it and expand the previously small interior into two larger bars. The refurbishment was undertaken in just seven weeks and was reopened on Wednesday 17th December. The project involved building a new lounge, snug areas, new toilets, kitchen and children’s room. Workmen worked around the clock to get the Globe completed in time for Christmas. Although the pub was free of tie Ansell’s Cambrian Brewery Company Ltd. still supplied their beer from Birmingham.

In more recent times Jessie Ellis was landlady from 1994 until she retired in 2009. When Chris Luxton took on the pub in 2013 he realised that the Globe could not survive purely as a drinker’s pub. He said in 2016, ‘when I took over here the Globe would be the last place you would go for food but all that’s changed. We are a pub that sells food rather than a restaurant that sells beer. Definitely not gastro.’ He added, ‘We also like to have real ale from local brewers like Wye Valley and Bespoke on tap. And in summer we get a lot of visitors from the local camp sites and holiday cottages.’ The Globe received a Trip Advisor Certificate of Excellence.