{"id":564680,"date":"2026-07-23T18:43:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T18:43:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/564680\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T18:43:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T18:43:34","slug":"stolen-pub-bench-turns-up-two-months-later-with-bizarre-sorry-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/564680\/","title":{"rendered":"Stolen pub bench turns up two months later with bizarre &#8216;sorry&#8217; gift"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A missing pub bench has finally returned home after a two-month mystery holiday \u2014 but it didn\u2019t come back empty-handed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Back in May, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/thestokesexeter\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Stoke Arms<\/a> in Exeter revealed that one of its picnic benches had disappeared from the pub grounds overnight. They explained that the bench had been put to one side as one of the seats was broken.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a post shared on social media, the pub shared its disappointment and appealed for the bench to be returned, saying that anyone with information could simply leave it back on the front lawn if they didn\u2019t want to show their faces.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then, two months later, the mystery was finally solved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The bench made its unexpected return \u2013 and according to the pub, it came back in even better condition than when it left.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Not only that \u2013 it had a handwritten apology note and a very unusual peace offering.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The note read: \u2018Thank you for letting us borrow your bench; we\u2019ve given it much love. Please accept the pope as a peace offering xxx\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The gift? A Pope\u2019s head.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/extra.ie\/tag\/pub\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">pub <\/a>said the unusual present was \u2018greatly appreciated\u2019 and thanked the mystery group who had looked after the bench during its unexpected adventure.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A missing pub bench has finally returned home after a two-month mystery holiday \u2014 but it didn\u2019t come&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60],"class_list":["post-564680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}