LAST week (July 30), saw the soft reopening of The Six Bells pub, nearly two years since it had closed down.

The man responsible for the reopening is the pub's new landlord, Peter Clark.

Peter grew up in Liverpool and has worked in the pub industry for 24 years, since he was a teenager.

He's worked in pubs back home on Merseyside, in Brighton and in Central London.

But after his pub in Brighton was forced to close due to the coronavirus pandemic, he decided he wanted a new challenge and his attention shifted to Brentford.

In November last year, he applied to take over a number Fuller's pubs, one of them being the Beehive.

When he went to see the Beehive, Fuller's also showed him The Six Bells just down the road, which wasn't being advertised at the time, as it had been boarded up.

He told Brentford Nub News: "I've always wanted to work for Fuller's, they're a really good company to work for and a great brewery.

"The minute I laid eyes on The Six Bells I fell in love with it straight away."

Despite never having ventured out this far into West London, Peter did a bit of research and talked to some of his friends who live nearby in Chiswick and Richmond, and decided to take over the local pub.

He had a lot of ideas on what to do with his new pub and eventually decided to open The Six Bells as an LGBTQ venue, but also 'open to all'.

"A few people had mentioned opening the pub as an LGBTQ venue, but I was unsure to be honest as I was new to the area and all the demographics available online were quite old and outdated, so I didn't know what the scene was like over here," he said.

Following the announcement in early July that the pub would be reopening, Peter got to work on some repairs and lots of cleaning, which took around four weeks.

That included painting the front of the pub, redecorating the back bar, clearing up the back garden from overgrown weeds, along with a touch-up of the toilets.

Although not everything was ready, such as the food equipment being set up, The Six Bells had its soft reopening last Friday and it was a great success.

Peter said: "In no way could I have hoped for a better launch weekend.

"It was just crazy, there were so many people, lots of LGBTQ people came to support, everyone was so giddy and excited to get in the pub again.

"I actually shed a tear on the night because I couldn't believe how great it all went."

Moving forward Peter is looking to get regular music set up, along with other entertainment events such as quizzes.

He also plans to take the pub down a rugby route, as he argues that there are quite a few football pubs around and believes there's a space in the market for rugby.

He added: "At the moment though, all I'm focusing on is getting the pub back up and running after two years of it being boarded up.

"There's still a lot that needs to be done, such as getting the food equipment all set up and starting to serve food to our customers.

"Once that's done, that's when the actual launch party will take place and I can't wait for that."

You can find The Six Bells at 148 High Street; opening hours are 12pm-11pm Sunday to Thursday, with Fridays and Saturdays staying open until 1am.