Wetherspoons pub Lord Arthur Lee in Fareham will serve final pint this weekend - new owners set to take over

A spokesman for Wetherspoons has confirmed the pub’s final day of trading is on April 28 with the sale due to be completed on May 3 to new owners who are buying the long-standing pub. Details of their identity and what the new-look pub will be like are expected to be unveiled shortly after the sale.

As previously reported by The News, The Lord Arthur Lee in West Street was put under offer after being put up for sale for £400,000 at the end of last year. It was put on a list of 32 pubs the chain was planning to offload. The 9,129sqft pub had been marketed at £400,000 by estate agent Savills, with an advert also appearing on Rightmove.

A Wetherspoon spokesman said in December: “ The Lord Arthur Lee is up for sale, however, it will continue to trade as normal until it is sold. Wetherspoon does, on occasion, put some of its pubs up for sale, and this is the case here.”

The pub was previously a Co-op and was named after a former MP for Fareham. The pub shot to prominence in May 2003 when a banned drinker smashed his car through the front doors before driving around inside the bar. Customers dived for cover as the driver reversed his Vauxhall Cavalier into the pub and crashed into the bar.

He destroyed tables, chairs and glasses during the terrifying incident that left staff needing counselling and one requesting a transfer. The man had been barred from the Wetherspoon pub the night before for begging for drinks from other customers. Before he crashed his car into the pub he had broken 12 of the building's windows with a large weightlifter's dumbbell.