The Bay Horse Inn, Roughlee, is our Pub of the Week

Leaseholders Jilly and Damian Fielding took over The Bay Horse Inn in Blacko Bar Road, Roughlee, in 2025 and, over the last 16 months, have invested to bring the business back to life.

We caught up with Jilly.

Introduce yourself

I am Jilly Fielding, and we’re leaseholders on a six‑year lease.

We reopened last year – our grand opening was March 2025 – so we’re about 16 months into trading now.

New chandeliers were introduced (Image: The Bay Horse)

We’ve invested a lot of our own money to bring the building and the business back to life, and we’re determined to make it work.

How has it been going?

It’s hard in this industry right now – there are a lot of obstacles and hurdles, and you have to work very hard. We put a huge amount of effort in, along with our team.

It’s been challenging, but we’ve enjoyed it, and we do feel proud when people tell us how much the pub has changed.

It is tough, though, and we need help from the government like everybody else in the trade.

Do you do food?

We’ve got a traditional menu with specials – Sunday roast, steak, gammon – and our pies are really popular: steak pudding, cheese and onion pie, that sort of thing.

The pub offers a traditional menu alongside its tapas and pizza offerings (Image: The Bay Horse)

We’ve also recently opened what we call the Cauldron, because we’re in “Witchland”.

The Cauldron is our pizza, tapas and cocktail bar, and the pizzas and tapas are really taking off. People love it.

What are your customers like?

We're getting people in their late 20s to mid‑40s, with families and thirty‑something couples, as well as our older regulars.

They have recently introduced a new pizza kitchen (Image: The Bay Horse)

We’ve now got a really nice balance across age groups, and everyone just mingles.

Even older customers like the tapas because they don’t always want a big steak pudding and chips – they like having smaller plates as an option.

What are the interiors like?

When we came, the restaurant felt like one big long canteen. We’ve sectioned it into three parts so it feels more intimate and people aren’t sat in one huge room.

We’ve added another fireplace and wood‑burner in the front room, and we’ve named all the different areas of the pub.

There have been numerous internal renovations (Image: The Bay Horse)

When we arrived, all the light fittings and wall lights were plastic deer antlers, which just looked horrible. We’ve replaced them with chandeliers.

So it’s a classy pub, but still a proper country inn. We’ve done loads to it – it’s a really gorgeous pub now.

Do you have a beer garden?

The beer garden was horrible when we first came. My husband’s a joiner, so he’s done a lot of work out there.

We’ve now got lovely hanging baskets and planting; there’s still a bit to do, but it’s nearly completed, and people love it. They say it’s “just gorgeous” at the back.

The garden at The Bay Horse (Image: The Bay Horse)

People also sit out at the front – the whole place looks really pretty, especially in summer.

Do you host any events?

We have a monthly quiz on the second Tuesday, and we play “Play Your Cards Right” alongside it. If nobody wins, the jackpot rolls over – the biggest we’ve had was £480, which a local person won.

At the moment it’s at £54. We usually get at least eight teams of six for the quiz, so it’s worth doing.

We also have live music – bands or singers about once a month – and on 9 August we’ve got a big scooter event with Skafull.

It’s part of a Yorkshire and Lancashire scooter rally, and we’re also involved in the Pendle Pub Walk, so we do plenty of outdoor events as well.

A cocktail at the Bay Horse (Image: The Bay Horse)

What is the best thing about running a pub?

It’s the whole experience of meeting new people. We see our locals regularly, but we also see so many visitors because of where we are – up by Pendle Hill. It’s an attraction, so we get people saying, “We’re from Manchester,” or “We’re from down south.”

The other big thing is seeing how grateful people are to have their pub back. They were worried it would be developed into houses or apartments.

It nearly went that way, but it was saved and bought by a private company that leases it out.

We took on the six‑year lease, and even though we’re still relatively new, we’re becoming more and more established.