In a small Shropshire village lies a pub which is the heart of the community

When you step away from the maddening crowd and head into the country, the role of a pub can become a vital one for the community it represents.

In rural communities, the pub becomes more than simply a place to enjoy a cold drink or hot meal as it also becomes a place to congregate together as a community and be the centre for social activities in an isolated area.

Take a ride on the B4368 between Clun and Craven Arms and you'll chance upon the small village of Clunton, home to the Crown Inn, a pub with more than 400 years of history in a village named in the Doomsday Book.

While the village has decreased in size over the years, the pub has remained engrained at the centre of it and has become a community-owned pub which, currently, is managed by Blaine Reed and Michelle Coutts.

The couple came to the village six years ago after a decade living and working in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, but Ms Coutts said the couple had wanted to come back to Blaine's Shropshire roots and found it was the perfect pub.

She said: "We were looking to come back to Shropshire as we'd been living in the Forest of Dean for 10 years, but Blaine and myself had had a restaurant in Shropshire before that and we wanted to come back up as his family are all in the county.

"It's where he grew up and worked, where his family is and where I met him and we've been trying to come back for a few years, but could never find the right place.

"It took us a while, but we saw this place was on the market on a lease and it was community owned, so we realised that was the built-in core community and we could see the potential."

Ms Coutts said the couple spent six weeks getting the pub ready to go after moving in as they had discovered from the locals that previous tenants had left the place in a poor state.

She said: "We knew that one of the previous tenants had run the pub for nine years and had an excellent reputation and still lived in the village, which was a good sign as, usually, when you leave a business, you end up moving away.

"However, after they left, there was a year with a couple of other tenants where, sadly, they kind of run the place into the ground, so from our view point, the only way was up.

"We stripped out the kitchen and did a lot of work in the cellar and we got it up to how we wanted it to be and to run it as our kind of business."

Ms Coutts said a lot of what had made the pub popular had been the cooking of her other half, with everything made from scratch and people coming from across the country to sample his cooking.

She said: "He's an amazing chef and does everything himself, right down to the ice creams and desserts and we knew that the food would get people in, with some people following us here and we knew we had that core for his food as there wasn't anything like that around here.

"He can make amazing burgers and we also have steak weekends where the local butcher sends us over his prime cuts, such as 60 day aged steaks.

"We are also a local pub and, as such, we have a separate restaurant, a bar and a snug area for drinkers, so there's always somewhere for drinkers to sit."

On top of that, as a freehouse, Ms Coutts said that she was able to pick whatever beer she wanted on tap, with a wide selection available each week.

She said: "Everything we have is alternated every week and it's so much fun as we get to pick beers from all over the country, from Edinburgh to Wye Valley to Wales and there's so many beers out there that we can try.

"I get to shop for beers every Sunday, so contact my wholesaler and also look at the emails from all our suppliers and we shop for the different brands.

"We also have a lot of Scottish whiskies and a great wine selection, but we never keep anything permanent and we're always changing, which our customers love as they don't know what they'll get, but they'll take recommendations."

Ms Coutts said the pub was home, saying: "I love it and I couldn't imagine having anywhere quite like it or as good as this.

"Our regular customers keep us going and we have a lot of local characters, so it's just a wonderful place for us."