At the start of the twentieth century the legacy of the Wilding Family and the reputation which they had established gave the hotel every opportunity for further expansion. RCB Oliver’s opinion of the Wildings is worth recording: ‘As well as being successful hoteliers, the Wildings were considered by their local contemporaries to be people of great integrity, and thus were held in high esteem by the whole community’. For the first part of the century ownership of the inn remained with the Penybont Estate. In 1907 the estate passed to Major General Robert Whitehead and after his death in 1910 to his widow. On her death in 1926 the whole estate was sold, including the Severn Arms.



The sale was held at the Iron Room on Tuesday, September 7th 1926. Lot 18 was described as ’The Old Fashioned and well- known Fully Licensed Premises known as the Severn Arms Hotel…with upwards of 20 acres of superior rich meadow and pasture land’. The interior contained ‘a Bar, Parlour, Dining Room, Sitting Room, Private Sitting Room, Kitchen, Storehouse and Cellars together with four Best Bedrooms, 8 corridor bedrooms, Bathroom, H&C and internal sanitary arrangements upstairs’. The Outside premises consisted of ‘stabling for nine horses, 3 loose boxes, cow houses fitted for 3 cows, calves pen. chaff & fodder compartments, cart houses (now used as garages) with lofts above.’ The auctioneer, Mr Percy Hamer, was able to announce ‘to the crowded room’ that ‘a number of the farms had been sold privately to the tenants at the agreed prices, an announcement which gave the most lively satisfaction. These private sales include the well-known hotel the Severn Arms which was secured by Mr W C Collard who had managed the hotel exceedingly well for a number of years.’ The price paid is not known but Llwynhir farm with 11 acres sold for £460 and Dolswydd with 127 acres for £2,000. Penybont Hall with Cwmroches, Bank House and ‘several convenient cottages’ was withdrawn at £9,500. We may presume that the Severn Arms was sold for something between these last two amounts.



Mr & Mrs Bill and Minnie Collard were in charge of the Severn Arms from 1920 to 1945. We are fortunate to have first-hand accounts of this period and a number of photographs have survived. In the early years the hotel was still recovering from the effects of the Great War during which many local events had ceased to be held. The Annual Sports and Races re-started in 1921 and were now always held on the Severn Arms field. The athletic sports, earlier organised by the Loyal Order of Foresters, became part of the horse racing event which also included cycle and motorbike racing, displays and other attractions. The Penybont branch of the Women’s Institute started in 1920, the year the Collards arrived, meeting in the Iron Room next to the inn. Penybont Football Club re-started in 1921 and by the next year won the Builth Spa Cup at Builth before a thousand spectators. All these, and many other village activities, were closely linked with the Severn Arms hotel.



In this period, as earlier, the local hunts met at the Severn Arms and returned there after their day in the field. This became one of the regular meeting points for the Teme Valley and West Herefordshire Hunt and for the Hawkstone Otter Hounds. Coursing for hares was a popular sport and with a very large rabbit population shooting and ferreting was enjoyed by both locals and visitors. Fishing (with rod and line) was mainly the preserve of wealthy visitors and the hotel made a point of advertising the ‘abundant’ fishing available in the local river on which the hotel had fishing rights.



Mr & Mrs Fred and Bessie Brown took over the management of the Severn Arms in 1945 initially as tenants but then purchased the business from Mr & Mrs Collard in 1947. Mr Brown, whose family had earlier farmed at Gwaenarglwydd just this side of the Radnor Forest, had worked for some years as a manager of a banana farm in South America – he used to say to our local farmers that it was so large that it took him eight days to ride around it. His wife Bessie (Lettice Elizabeth), who was related to the Collard family, took over the cooking duties and for the next 25 years the hotel was under their careful management before it was taken over in 1970 by their son and daughter-in-law Mr Bill and Mrs Jean Brown who ran it for a further seven years up to 1977.



This period is fresh in the memory of many people living in the Penybont area today and the family are still held in great affection. In the years immediately after the end of the Second World War there were severe shortages and numerous constraints on the business community. It would be true to say that many things did not return to their pre-war condition. There were however positive changes taking place with improved transport, mains electricity, and a sewage system for the village – which also did a great deal to improve the fishing! The hotel’s 16 bedrooms were usually fully occupied for most of the season from March to September. There was no heating other than open fires and few of these were lit in the bedrooms. There was at first no running water in the bedrooms and warm water had to be carried upstairs each morning by the chamber maids. Wash basins and piped water to the rooms was installed in about 1948. Before the arrival of mains electricity in the 1950’s lighting was supplied by an oil fired 50 Watt D.C. generator housed in an outhouse. The process of starting the engine was fraught with danger. If the starting handle was not quickly withdrawn it would be turned by the engine and eventually fly off in any direction and at any angle. At such moments it was advisable to vacate the building with all speed.



Fishermen and walkers continued to be the most frequent visitors and the hotel continued to advertise its 20 miles of trout fishing water. There were also some families who came to spend a week’s holiday year after year – such as the Woodard family, Prebendary and Mrs Woodard and their three children (one of whom Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Woodard was later captain of the Royal Yacht Britannia). Other notable visitors in this period were the actor Charles Laughton and the author Georgette Heyer.

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The present garage next to the Severn Arms started life as a Neissen Hut brought from the army camp on Penybont Common by Mr Fred Brown. Petrol Pumps were also installed outside the hotel and the hut was used to garage visitors’ cars. The Iron Room was the property of the Hotel and was used to cater for large parties. Mrs Jean Brown had the task of preparing up to 250 hot meals there on some special occasions. By this time the Court Room had been transferred to Llandrindod. The Justices’ room at the far end of the hall was now used by the auctioneer’s clerk and the gallery at the hotel end of the hall was no longer used by witnesses to the magistrates’ court. The old shackles used earlier to restrain prisoners were still attached to a door post on the other side of the hotel in the doorway leading from the present kitchen to the dining room indicating that before the Court moved to the Iron Room it was held inside the hotel itself.

 
The auction yard was in frequent use at this time. Sheep sales were held every week and the great cattle sales held three times a year were very busy days for the hotel. Mr Bill Brown remembers seeing cattle being taken in batches past the hotel to Penybont Station in an almost continuous stream over a period of an hour. Race Day and the May Fair were also very busy and indeed there was never a quiet day in the hotel in those days. Bill Brown remembers it as “a very happy place full of lovely people.”



From 1977 to 1983 the Severn Arms was under the management of Mr Ken and Mrs Jean Davies. Ken was a builder by trade and his skill contributed a great deal to the structural changes carried out inside the hotel which created the layout we see there today. The bar and cooking facilities were brought up to date but the traditional homely atmosphere was retained with an open wood fire in each bar as the focus of attention.

 
In 1983 the hotel was purchased by Mr Geoff and Mrs Tessa Lloyd and they remain its owners to this day. From 1983 to 1999 they ran the hotel together but were persuaded to retire after Geoff suffered illness in 1995. Geoff says he enjoyed 99% of his time at the Severn Arms. The hotel continued to serve the community faithfully and welcomed the usual influx of customers on market days and special occasions. Sheep grading took place every Tuesday at the market for about ten months of the year, there were large cattle auctions three times a year and sheep sales every first Saturday in the month. There was also the Christmas Fat Stock auction and on the day after the August cattle sale on a Tuesday Penybont Races on the Wednesday. During this period the Llandrindod Wells Races were transferred to Penybont on the new August Bank holiday. It was interesting to see how many local customers continued to make a special visit to the hotel on the date of the Penybont May Fair although that event had been discontinued for some years.

 
The local football league began to make greater use of the Severn Arms each Saturday evening and it was for many years the effective headquarters of the league. The Fred Brown Domino Memorial Trophy brought teams together for three Tuesdays in November and for the final in December. A small group of about ten to fifteen ‘regulars’ came together almost every evening (see Fred Layton’s recollections on another page) and were the life and soul of the place. Some of them were totally confused when all-day opening arrived as they had been accustomed to arrive and depart at the set time!

 
A ‘Two-Day Break’ holiday scheme brought many more visitors and further improvements were made to the accommodation with showers added in each bedroom. Among notable visitors of this period was the TV presenter John Craven. Another group of visitors came each year on a golfing holiday playing for their own ‘Rhondda Cup’ (Penybont’s answer to the Ryder Cup) with teams representing USA and Europe. A replica of the original trophy is held by Mr Geoff Lloyd. One fishing club still comes to fish the Ithon each year and makes sure that Geoff and Tessa are invited to have dinner with them.

 
During this period the old Iron Room attached to the building fell into disrepair and eventually was entirely rebuilt and became the Penybont and District Community Hall. The ground was given on a 99 year lease by the Severn Arms to the community on a yearly rent of £1.



As in the past the Severn Arms continued to be a place which welcomed locals and strangers into its rooms. One visitor staying there with a group of friends came down in the night unclothed to visit the conveniences on the ground floor and after closing a door behind him found himself outside on the road. He had to ring the door bell to get back in and explain his position. On one very foggy night the front door was accidentally left open and in the morning a visitor came downstairs to explain that he had abandoned his car in the village in the early hours and, finding the door open, had slept in one of the bedrooms. He was invited to stay for breakfast.



Tessa and Geoff remember their time at the Severn as ‘very happy and very busy’. On one occasion their son came home to find that mother had let his room to accommodate a visitor! They especially remember the loyal staff who shared the work with them. One Christmas over 30 part-time and former members of staff sat down to a meal together.

On November 1st 1999 the tenancy of the Severn Arms was taken by Mr Drew and Mrs Tracey Owen who remain there to this day. Once again the hotel has found a husband and wife partnership with all the qualifications and qualities required to maintain the high traditions of a village business. Tracey was brought up at Upper Swydd near Penybont and started part-time work at the Severn Arms on Saturdays and holidays while at School in Llandrindod and later while studying Catering and Hotel Management at Coleg Powys Newtown. She then worked away from the area for 16 years with Trust House Forte at Machynlleth and then at Marlborough, before being appointed Assistant Manager at Trust House Forte Chester. It was while she was in Marlborough that she met Drew who was then working for Suttcliffe Catering at Marlborough College. Drew had trained in Catering at Plymouth and then served with the Royal Commando Regiment in Northern Ireland. After returning to civilian life he later also worked for Trust House Forte as a Chef. Drew and Tracey brought this experience to Penybont in 1999 and , with the addition of their children Ffion and Dylan, born in Penybont, have established a family business which we (and they) hope will continue for many years to come.

 
They both value the peaceful, friendly and safe environment of Penybont (where else could one bring up children in a licensed premises with such confidence?). Despite recent changes to the village – such as the closure of the cattle market, difficulties with the Post Office, etc – and the increasing effects of drink-drive regulations, the foot-and-mouth epidemic and other factors, the Severn Arms has continued to flourish and expand over these last six years. The catering side of the business has increased, more wine is now served and there is a younger clientele in this department. Other important aspects of the business are: concessionary arrangements for pensioners at weekday lunch-time; a regular evening gathering of about a dozen friends; themed food nights for six weeks in the spring and autumn supported by about 40 regular diners; Quiz Night on Tuesdays with an average of six teams of 4 persons; Men and Ladies’ Darts teams; two pool teams; two dominoes teams; strong links with Penybont Football Club with after-match food and annual dinners. Special occasions in the area which bring in considerable custom include Penybont and Llandrindod Races in August and property sales and other events in the Community Hall. Tourism continues to flourish and there is an important passing trade of mainly one night accommodation. In high season there may be up to 150 guests each week in the ten double bedrooms and three self-catering caravans.



The hotel is served by a full-time staff of three – Drew and Tracey Owen and assistant manager Lynda Price – supported by a part-time chef, four bar staff and seven restaurant workers. Drew and Tracey work an average day of up to 14 hours – 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. – with just one day a week off and an annual holiday of two weeks. Despite this they say they have never been happier in their lives and hope to live and work in Penybont until they retire – a hope which all their customers share!