LEOMINSTER looks set for a rare type of drinking venue after plans for a parlour pub were approved.

A tiny alehouse will now transform a former estate agency outlet in South Street having been granted planning permission by Herefordshire Council.

Customers will sit around drinking tables in just one room with no bar.

Televisions, music and fruit machines will also be absent as drinkers are encouraged to chat and make new friends.

Local real ales and cider will be stored in barrels in a separate room.

The venture is the brainchild of Bryan Jones who is new to the industry having previously worked in IT.

“I’m very pleased with the decision and with the way the planning department has treated me,” said Bryan.

“The next step is to apply for a premises licence.”

Bryan, from Whitbourne, said he would serve customers himself with change given via a market traderstyle money belt instead of a till.

The venue, formerly occupied by Monks estate agency, will be called The Peppercorn in honour of Stoke Prior’s Arthur Peppercorn who went on to become a notable locomotive engineer.

Just up the road in Leintwardine lies arguably the country’s finest parlour pub example.

The Sun was run by Flossie Lane before she died aged 94 in 2009 and is now owned by two of its regulars.

The only other remaining examples of parlour pubs in the UK are thought to be in Kent, Hartlepool and Chesterfield.

Parlour pubs were commonplace in Victorian times when people would brew and sell beers from their own homes.