The Plough Inn is a community-owned pub in Longparish, the strung-out Test Valley village northeast of Stockbridge. There has been a pub on the site since 1721, but in the late 2010s it was sold to a property developer and came close to being lost for good. The village bought it back instead: more than 300 people took shares and Longparish Parish Council raised a government loan, and by February 2021, three centuries after it first started trading, the Plough belonged to the village again. It reopened after a thorough renovation, run for local benefit, with locally sourced food and well-kept regional ales.
The Test Way runs right along the edge of the garden, so walkers come straight off the long-distance path, and cyclists on the valley lanes and fly-fishers working the Test’s clear chalk streams are made just as welcome — somewhere to warm up by the fire, with water bottles refilled at the bar. Whitchurch station is about 6km to the northeast.
