Built in the early 18th Century, The Tharp Arms is a pub with a history as steep and unique as its unusual roof line. Today, the pub stands at the heart of Chippenham, a small rural village just a few miles from the equine capital of Newmarket and draws its name from the family who live at Chippenham Park.
Over the past three hundred years the pub has been the centre of social activity for Chippenham, a village with a rich history of entertaining members of the aristocracy - and even royalty. Although originally called The Rodney's Gibb, the pub's name has changed several times and was known as The Hope Inn before it settled on its current name in the 1890s.
Despite the village of Chippenham having seen its fair share of poor and rich times, The Tharp Arms has always remained a place for people to visit, to socialise and to relax.
These days the pub is owned by local brewery Greene King and tenanted to the current landlords, Mark and Ali Daniels, who took over the pub in 2005 and work hard to maintain its reputation as a great place to meet, drink, eat and to simply have some fun.
During the summer of 2007 Mark and Ali gave the pub some much-needed and long-overdue TLC, stripping back all the internal walls and undertaking the work needed to fix many of the damp and structural problems the building was beginning to suffer. Once all the maintenance work was completed, they then moved on to completely redecorate all three trading areas. The Public Bar and Lounge Bar both have a new, fresh and welcoming aspect to them and a room to the rear, previously used as a space for extra seating and an area that non-smokers could sit, has now been turned in to a small but comfortable dining area.
With the introduction of the smoking ban in July 2007, a new shelter was built on the side of the pub to allow smokers protection from the elements when stepping outside. The shelter was deliberately built to be as sympathetic to the architecture of the pub as possible whilst providing a practical and comfortable seating area for its users. As well as shelter and seating, the new smoking area also provides two large heat lamps to keep the chill at bay on colder days.
Finally, in November 2007, Mark and Ali closed the pub's old kitchen and completely stripped it, taking three weeks to design and install an efficient, modern cooking environment suitable for today's Health & Safety conscious regulations.
With all these recent changes, The Tharp Arms is - as it always has been - a great place to visit. With its historic character, comfortable bars, large beer garden and good food & beer, it's also now set up to cater for the 21st Century - and, hopefully, for many more years than that, too.
