Heart of the Village

Heart of the Village (HOTV) is the name of the Community Benefit Society which owns the Royal Oak and runs it on behalf of everyone in the village. The building has housed the community shop since the end of November 2020 and the pub reopened in April 2021 as soon as Covid restrictions allowed. The setting up of the CBS, the purchase of the Oak, its refurbishment and continuing operation would not have been possible without a massive amount of work by many volunteers throughout the village and beyond.

Full information about HOTV may be found on the dedicated HOTV website: heartofthevillage.uk. Links to the pub and the shop may be found to the right (or below on smaller screens).

The Royal Oak on VJ Day 1945. Photo courtesy of Pete Nicholas, via Dave Evans

About the logo
The overall shape represents the parish of Stoke St Gregory. The number of dots equates roughly to the number of people who live here, and the coalescence around hotv at the centre is intended to illustrate what we are trying to do: to bring the village together around a common meeting point—or heart. If you like, you can also read it as a swarm of bees, working together in the common cause to produce sweetness. This theme is echoed in the hexagonal (honeycomb) shape of the sign for the shop.