As we enter the final few days of 2023, let us remind ourselves of the pubs that we have lost in the last five years.

This hospitality industry has been severely impacted by numerous issues in recent years such as the pandemic, the rising costs of rent/mortgages, people drinking from home, and most importantly, the cost of booze in pubs.

The lack of customers has seen several public houses across the county disappear since 2018, with more supermarkets, cocktail bars, clothing shops and houses being built in the area.

So, what pubs have left the High Wycombe scene since 2018?

Beaconsfield Arms, Hughenden Road - Closed in 2018

The once-loved boozer in Wycombe shut its doors for the final time in April 2018 and has remained untouched since.

The closure was despite campaigners doing their best to save the pub that just a few years prior had been full of customers.

Speaking at the time in 2018, Maxine Chapman, a former landlady at the pub in 2007, said: “Since the smoking ban came into force and breweries putting their prices up every month it was hard to get trade.

“Students would rather walk to Morrisons to get a 24-pack and go home.

“If people used the pub then it wouldn’t close.”

The Junction Pub, London Road - Closed in 2018

The Junction pub - on the corner of London Road and Cock Lane said goodbye to its punters for the final time in April 2018 and has since been turned into a block of flats.  

In 2019, the Wellington Pub Company applied to turn the once-popular watering hole into flats because The Junction had been suffering ‘severe financial difficulties’ since around 2016 and was formally repossessed in June 2018 with a ‘large outstanding debt’.

The flats were finally revealed to the public in December 2021.

Happy Union, Boundary Road, Loudwater – Closed in 2020

The pub closed in the middle of 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic but struggled leading up to lockdown which began in March of that year.

It was deemed not to be a ‘commercial hit’ with the local area and had seen its customers drop shortly before its closure.

In 2021, it was sold and plans were confirmed to turn the boozer into flats.

However, these developments were rejected and at the time of writing, the Happy Union remains standing but not in use.

Derehams Inn, Derehams Lane, Loudwater – Closed in 2021

Despite closing in in 2021, there are still hopes that the boozer that sits on a hill in Loudwater can make a return.

At the start of 2023, many banners were spotted across the village encouraging people to sign a petition to stop the one-loved boozer being knocked down and turned into flats.

This came after a planning application was put forward at the beginning of this year.

Fast forward to August, these plans were rejected and whilst many residents celebrated this news, the fate of the Derehams Inn remains unknown.