Pub reopens after floods and car crash

A pub has reopened after a devastating series of setbacks, including two floods and a car crashing into it.

The Woolpack in Sopley in the New Forest, on the Hampshire and Dorset border, was forced to close its doors in January due to flood damage during Storm Chandra.

Landlady Barbara Smith said: "It just kept raining, raining, and locals said it was the worst they've ever seen. We had customers who had to take their shoes and socks off and paddle out."

It was flooded again a month later in the middle of repairs, and then a car collided with the premises in May.

Smith told the BBC: "The police called me and said 'there's a car in your front garden'.

"It had done a whole Dukes of Hazzard across the brook and took out the solid brick table and chairs and pushed an air conditioning unit within an inch of the front of the pub."

There were four other occasions where cars and vans have ended up in the beer garden at The Woolpack in recent years, though there have been no serious injuries.

Smith called the series of events a "real rollercoaster".

The pub's bad luck also extends to a severe thatch fire in 2008.

It dates from 1725 and is understood to have been visited by Sir Winston Churchill and President Franklin D Roosevelt during World War Two.

Hollywood Golden Age actress Greta Garbo is also known to have paid it a visit.

Asked if the pub deserved some luck, Smith said: "I know, I know... we will continue, nothing will stop us."