Kay said the pub was important to Horncliffe’s 403 residents.
Before the pub closed in 2021, the village had just lost its post office and shop.
“The village is a dead end, so there’s no street traffic or anything and we’ve got a fantastic village hall, but obviously that’s organised events, whereas the pub’s just spontaneous,” she said.
“There’s always somebody to talk to.”
Some of the volunteers had been working 14-hour days to keep the venue open.
Villagers aged in their 80s were even taking on short shifts, Kay said.
The volunteers have offered the new tenants one month of free volunteering to get them settled in, then Kay said: “It’s entirely up to them what they do.”
The official takeover happened on 8 July and was attended by the Mayor of Berwick and local Labour MP David Smith.
“So hopefully once the word gets out there that there’s food back on and it’s open most of the time, we’ll get the business built up again,” Kay said.
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