Meet the Publican - The Royal Oak, Uppingham

This time we travel to the east of the county to the market town of Uppingham, to meet Peter Fricker, who along with his wife Lynda, runs the Royal Oak in Queen Street.

Peter was born in Whitefield Manchester and attended the local Stand Grammar School. He left with 4 ‘A’ levels and went on to study Law at Hull University in Yorkshire. Peter remembers the University days as ‘Drunk and Thunk’, leading a typical student life of studying and drinking. Drinking in both the University bars and the local hostelries, he even found time to visit the White Horse or Nellie’s as the locals called it in Beverley, a truly unspoilt and un-modernised pub named after it’s licensee.

After leaving University, Peter went back to Manchester to ‘do his articles’ at a local legal firm. It was while here he met Lynda who was working at the firm as a legal secretary. After a short time working here, Peter decided that the legal profession was not for him, so he changed career and became a buyer at Great Universal Stores (GUS), who were based in Manchester at that time. He stayed with GUS from 1978 until 1986, when he left to become a buyer at a company call Kaleidoscope. Kaleidoscope became part of Next in 1990 and Peter moved to Desford to be near his new offices in Enderby. Peter stayed with Next until 1992, when he decided it was time to go on his own. For the next few years he ran various businesses in the mail order and distribution area from Desford. Lynda meantime was busy being Mum and Homemaker to the couples’ two children, Adam and Louise, as well as two children, Leon and Danny from her previous relationship. Leon has two children and lives in North Manchester. Danny also has two children and lives in Barwell. Adam is studying Medicine at University College London, whilst Louise is studying Technical Effects at the University of Arts London.

It was in August 2005 that Peter and Lynda took a lease on a Greene King pub called The Fox at Wilbarstone, which is small village between Market Harborough and Corby. They stayed for just under a year, deciding to leave when Lynda saw an advertisement for a free house (the Royal Oak) in Uppingham. “The appeal was”, says Lynda, “that it was a pub situated in the centre of a market town”. They arrived in September 2006 to a complete mess, the cellar was rat-infested, and the pub had to be completely gutted. With help from Invbev, the cellar was refurbished and they were still finishing off the bar fittings on the morning of the opening day, the 10^th November 2006. Whilst Invbev supply the lager, Peter has managed to get Grainstore beers in for his cask ales, Cooking and Steaming Billy were on draft when I was there. He is also hoping to get one of the Oakham beers in soon and is keen to get a few more beers in from local breweries in the near future. The pub has some old empty stables at the rear and Peter has some thoughts about a beer festival being held there sometime in the summer, so watch this space.

Paul Smith.

This page last updated: April 15, 2011

Full Archive.

This site copyright © 2001 - 2012 The Leicester branch of CAMRA, the Campaign for Real Ale