Lord Lucan's former home wins pub award

A pub that was the family home of Lord Lucan has won a award for an outstanding refurbishment.

Sutton Hall in Macclesfield was last week named as the winner of the CAMRA National Pub Design Award, in the refurbishment category.

The building was the birthplace of Elizabethan writer Ralph Holinshead and more recently the family home of the Earls of Lucan.

Over the last year it has undergone refurbishment work but judges praised the "sympathetic treatment" and "painstaking historical research" that was undertaken before work began.

Meanwhile the Brewery Tap in Chester picked up the conversion to pub use award. The building was most recently a Pizza Express prior to becoming a pub.

CAMRA runs the awards in association with English Heritage and the Victorian Society.

Historian and awards judge Dr Steven Parissie said: "Pubs give us a sense of identity, of belonging and of continuity in an ever-changing, fiscally-stringent world. They are an inexpensive as well as an invaluable resource."