The Beaver Inn is a small traditional pub with an amazing atmosphere and mouth watering menu. We are renowned for our fantastic fish specials and for the friendly service that we offer. Enjoy watching local talent? The Beaver Inn plays live local up-beat music every Saturday, we host the Marmalade Club (which is essentially an open mic night) every Sunday and on Mondays we host local acoustic artists (and one Monday a month we host North Devon Jazz Club). There is always something fun and exciting happening at The Beaver Inn!
CHARITIES
At The Beaver Inn charity work is very important to us. We have a lot of involvement in raising money for lots of local charities and work closely with the RNLI - a lot of the crew are often drinking in the pub (when they're not on duty)!
Westquay FUNdraisers
The owners of The Beaver Inn, Ali and Graham Stone, helped set up the fundraising group, Westquay FUNdraisers, over twenty years ago and in that time have raised a massive £150,000 for local charities. The Beaver Inn is often putting on charity events that help to raise money for this group and we are very proud of all of the hard work that is put in to help so many local charities. Charities that Westquay FUNdraisers raised money for include: * North Devon Hospice * Children’s Hospice South West * Carewise * Tarka Child Contact Centre * Families In Grief (FIG) * Beehive * Appledore Community Hall * North Devon Animal Ambulance * Appledore Brownies and Guides * North Devon Against Domestic Abuse (NDADA) * Chemoheroes * Headway *
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT APPLEDORE
Why not explore Appledore after your visit at The Beaver Inn? Once a thriving fishing village, Appledore still carries its rich history and character within its streets. The estuary running alongside Appledore is home to many traditional fishing vessels along with yachts, pleasure crafts and rowing boats – during the summer Appledore hosts plenty of water sporting festivities.
Our picturesque village was described by Victorian novelist Charles Kingsley as “that little, white fishing village” and offers many narrow winding lanes of brightly coloured painted cottages to explore, around every corner there is a nautical quirkiness and so many things to look out for. Many people come from all around the country to stay in the peaceful haven of Appledore as the village is the perfect base to get around North Devon with regular buses to nearby market towns such as Bideford, Barnstaple and Great Torrington. Fancy a walk? Appledore’s coastal paths are a beautiful, scenic way of visiting Bideford and Westward Ho!
THE HISTORY OF THE BEAVER INN
The Beaver Inn has been in existence for over 400 years serving the local fishing community and tradesmen from the new world (America). Many people ask us how we got our name “The Beaver Inn”, as the pub is so old it is hard to say exactly where the name came from but we do know that The Beaver Inn is where the Press Gang used to gather sailors that they were pressing into the King’s service. The Press Gang wore beaver pelt hats so the pub soon became known as the place of the beavers. It is well known that Appledore and Bideford used to be massive trading ports where goods would be traded with the new world (America). These goods included ceramics, tobacco and also beaver pelts so it is likely that the name for our pub, The Beaver Inn, also derived from this.
When a Captain brought a ship back from the new world, there was a big problem with crewing for the return journey as they feared that if the crew were to go into Bideford they would never be seen again. Consequently, the Captain would offload his crew at The Beaver Inn and the women of Irsha Street would bring their home-brewed beer and entertain the men whilst the Captain and a skeleton crew would sail down to Bideford and carry out their trades before returning to Appledore to pick up their crew for their return journey.