THE historic Jovial Colliers Inn in Lydbrook will be reopening within weeks, after being forced to shut by last November's floods.

Floodwater swamped the village and the water rose so high it was lapping along the surface of the bar.

Owners Tony and Denise O'Leary have run the pub for more than 11 years and live upstairs. The Jovial Colliers has been a pub for more than 200 years.

Tony O'Leary said: "The work at the pub is still going slowly. The trouble is, because it's an old building we keep finding more things that need repairing.

"We want to get it open as soon as possible. Ideally we would like to have the pub open sometime in July.

"The last few months have been very stressful.

"We've basically had to live in a dirty house above a building site. And because we had to take some of the plumbing out, we haven't had any heating in the whole building, either.

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