Reopening date revealed for the 5th Hants Volunteer Arms in Albert Road
Popular pub to reopen under new landlord
A historic pub which has been in Portsmouth for 141 years is set to reopen this week under a new stewardship.
The 5th Hants Volunteer Arms on Albert Road is opening on Friday, October 16 at 12pm with Ally Wearn taking the helm as the new landlord, She is no stranger to running pubs in the city having been in charge of The Lawrence Arms on Lawrence Road for the past 15 years.
The 5th Hants was shuttered suddenly in August with Admiral Taverns announcing that they were searching for someone new to run it. It was an opportunity that Ally jumped at having already worked behind the bar there as part of a borrow a barmaid/man’ scheme by The Lawrence Arms when it was closed temporarily in 2023 after a car crashed into it.
Ally previously told The News that she was looking to take the pub back to its traditional roots.
She said: “We would like to embrace the history of the pub, in the 70s it was where the Portsmouth CAMRA (Campaign for Real Ale) branch was born so it has a lot of history and I have lots of fond memories of it as a traditional pub. We would like to take it back to that.
“I see it as somewhere with real ales, pork pies and pickled eggs, that very old school style of pub.”
Having collected the keys at the start of October work has been ongoing to get the site ready for customers on Friday.