FOLLOWING on from my letter in last week's Review regarding Roy Close's mystery pub, I received a phone call from an old acquaintance, Sheila Black, who used to call on us when we had the Archive Shop in Lydney.

It seems that Kelly's Directories are not quite the font of all knowledge I thought they were and that there were two other Farmer's Arms pubs in Gloucestershire.

Sheila directed me to a CAMRA website (www.

gloucestershirecamra.org.uk), which carries a detailed database of the county's pubs and inns. By clicking on the pubs database and then selecting order by name and, at the bottom of the screen, page 828 on the pull down menu, you bring up the Farmer's Arms at Maugersbury, near Stow on the Wold.

The page includes modern and older photos of the pub (which is still extant but greatly enlarged and apparently trading as a hotel and restaurant), along with details of its ownership and landlords from 1891.

This is undoubtedly the establishment in Roy's picture, so it is a Gloucestershire pub although not a Forest one. For anyone interested in the history of the county's drinking establishments, this is a superb website, with over 3,000 pubs listed in great detail.

– Neil Parkhouse, Lydney.