Even the furniture is for sale at the 
Black Swan Hotel in Devizes, as MARION SAUVEBOIS discovered...

YOU would not be the first to do a double take at the glut of militaria choking the walls, the rows of bibelots, the flotsam of film curios, the chaos of hanging pots and the stuffed deer heads poking out from dark recesses – and make a swift if not discreet exit.

This only to establish that, if the Black Swan sign beckoning patrons is to be trusted, you have not taken a wrong turn into Ali Baba’s cave, Dickens’s Ye Olde Curiosity Shop or, worse, someone’s actual living room, but by all accounts a working pub.

Step back in and amid the hoard of collectibles, you’ll spy the tell-tale signs of trade: an imposing oak bar to your left, farmhouse tables strewn around the place, rococo chairs and velvet chesterfields flanking the open fireplace and grandfather clock.

It’s all part of the charm at Devizes’s new-look Black Swan Hotel on Market Place.

“It’s quite interesting seeing people’s reaction when they come in,” smiles landlord John Chapman.

“It’s like Marmite, you hate it or you love it. There is a lot of everything, things that everybody else rejects. A lot of people think it’s cluttered but we’re happy with it.

“There’s enough here to drag you into imagination and thought.”

A seasoned antiques dealer with the shop to prove it – Crowman Antiques down the road – John knows his Art Deco from his chinoiseries.

When the time came for him and wife Florence to embark on a new venture as publicans and hoteliers in 2014, one thing was certain: they would not head up another bland ten-a-penny chain pub.

“The Black Swan was rebuilt in 1737 and largely the idea was to take it back to the original.

“We removed the ghastly carpet, we opened up the fireplaces, exposed the floorboards. The pub was really dated and more like a boarding house than a coaching inn. Often people pay a lot of money to sit in uninspiring interiors. We wanted the complete opposite of that.”

The leap from antiques to hospitality may seem rather mad or ill-advised but the one-time kitchen trainee itched to get back behind the stove.

John started training as a chef at 16 but the meagre pay and gruelling hours got the better of him. He left and eventually applied to read law in Hampshire.

This was a “tedious” choice, he admits.

He went on to become a law lecturer at Portsmouth University, only indulging in his love of gastronomy with copious cooking at home.

Twenty years ago he partnered up with a university colleague and opened a small antiques store.

Before long John packed in his day job and went into antiques dealing full time. He set up shop in Marlborough before moving to Devizes nine years ago where he met Florence, an architect and artist, and launched Crowman.

Two years ago, the pair began cautiously weighing up the pros and cons of getting into the pub business and reconciling John’s two passions.

Circumspect, John was given a nudge in the right direction by his friend and client Marco Pierre White. By October 2014, he and Florence had taken over as the Black Swan Hotel’s landlords.

“He inspired me,” says the 45-year-old fondly of Marco Pierre White. “He is a friend and client of mine at the antiques shop. We spent a year cooking together at my house beforehand.

“He’s very focused and they were very intense cooking sessions. He became my mentor. He helped me improve the recipes and he often drops in to give the trainees advice. He’s always on the end of the phone for me.”

With the help of White he whipped up a “peasant food” menu featuring British and continental classics including bubble and squeak and poulet chasseur, perfectly mirroring the rustic, unaffected character of the Wadworth Brewery pub.

For adventurous customers there are slightly more inventive yet still simple dishes, such as crevettes flambees in Pernod.

“We just do peasant food: honest, unpretentious food, locally sourced – that’s our mainstay,” says John, who acts as the inn’s executive head chef but is slowly relinquishing the reins to his ambitious young trainee Shaynee Davis. “We’re not trying to be a flashy restaurant.”

He may serve understated traditional fare but the kitchen is a chip-free zone.

“As a chef the last thing you want to do is sit over a deep fat fryer,” John volunteers.

The quirky antiques store gimmick is not just for show: everything from the boar’s head over the fireplace to the furniture is up for sale.

“The tables and chairs are selling well – obviously we don’t remove them when people are sitting at them, buyers have to wait,” quips John who juggles running the business with raising three young children, including a newborn.

“The pub business is tough, so many pubs go under now. You have to be quite diverse and the antiques gave the business another string to its bow.”

The Black Swan is a family affair: Florence deals mainly with the hotel side of the operation, John’s 16-year-old son Daniel is a kitchen trainee and his in-laws regularly pop in to lend a hand.

The inn’s homely decor is just as well as it has truly become a home away from home.

John and Florence are now working on clearing the inn’s large garden, which will open to the public in spring with an outdoor bar.

Business is now picking up nicely and the frenzy of their first year is firmly behind them but there is no question of a break. A publican’s job is never done.

“Until recently I worked 18-hour days – it requires a lot of commitment,” he shrugs. “There is no weekend for a publican or a chef.

“It’s not a small undertaking for a family-run business, the hotel side was daunting. But we’ve done what we wanted to do. And we’ve and kept our identity.”

The Black Swan Hotel is at 25-26 Market Place, Devizes, SN10 1JQ. Call 01380 698070 or visit blackswandevizes.co.uk.