Our Pheasant Story

The story of The Pheasant started for us when we moved back from Turin, Italy in the summer of 2015 with our 2 month old son Duncan. My dad, Colin Dewar had bought the old Pheasant Inn premises the year before and had plans to rennovate the C Listed building back in to two houses. Just a little retirement project!

While waiting for the permits to go through the only work carried out was making the building water tight. In the meantime Andrea and I were looking around for potential places to take over and start a new venture when it came in to conversation, why don't we reopen The Pheasant? Plans were changed and by the winter the unlikely duo (Andrea and Colin) were in full renovation mode. Andrea always happy with a sledge hammer in hand and Colin with at least one good eye, decades of experience and his favourite radio station Radio Pheasant (silience) they accepted the challenge.

Although not wielding power tools and making mess I pulled my weight tackling the endless paperwork and planning, and believe me there was plenty whilst trying to be a good mum. I had never been involved in a project like this nevermind co-lead one. In between feeds, naps and walks I tried to be on site as much as I could . I often arrived to find that desicions made the day before wouldn't or couldn't be carried through. It was very challenging and sometimes progress was painfully slow but on other days walls and floors disappeared and reappeared in no time at all.

We saw fantasy deadlines pushed back time and time again, at points it felt like we were never going to finish but after much blood, sweat and tears (on my part) we did it. It took a little over a year.

We would never have completed the work without the proffessional help from Joiners Harry, Doc and Alistair, plasters Jim and Stuart, sparkies Jack and Jack 2, as Andrea calls him and carpeter Paul and his team. However we also have to thank family and friends for their contribution and support throughout the project. Many came to paint, sand and clean or to babysit so that I could paint, sand and clean!

On the 4 of December we had a small gathering to celebrate the hard work and achievement and to thank our family and friends for their support. I didn't manage to hold back tears as I dedicated the opening to my mum Isabel who had died 10 years before. She would have loved to have been involved in the project and I'm certain very proud of what we achieved.