Chippenham is a market town in northwest Wiltshire, 13 miles from Bath, home to a Plymouth Brethren community of approximately 200 members. The meeting rooms in the Chippenham area are operated by a charity called the Down Gospel Trust.
A 400-year-old Wiltshire pub — the last community asset in its village — was acquired by Brethren members during the Covid pandemic and sold on to the Down Gospel Trust. The trust's trustees include the brother-in-law of former MP Michelle Donelan, and a director of the first UK company to receive a PPE contract. The local community's campaign to save the Plough Inn failed.
Chippenham is a market town in northwest Wiltshire, 13 miles from Bath, home to a Plymouth Brethren community of approximately 200 members. The meeting rooms in the Chippenham area are operated by a charity called the Down Gospel Trust.
The Down Gospel Trust owns six properties: five meeting rooms in the Chippenham area, and a sixth property that was formerly the Plough Inn — a public house adjacent to the main Chippenham City meeting room at Kington Langley.
The Plough is located on the A350 between Kington St Michael and Kington Langley. It had been a public house for close to 400 years. In July 2020, during the Covid pandemic, the Plough was listed for sale by Fleurets with a guide price of £475,000. On 20 November 2020 it was sold to the Sarsen Stone Group — a company based in Devizes, whose directors were Chippenham-based brothers Hamish and Marcus Smith alongside Michael Dible. All three are Brethren members. At the time of the purchase, Dible was a trustee of the Down Gospel Trust.
The Plough was the last remaining community asset in Kington Langley aside from the village hall. A local campaign group — Kington Communities Enterprise Ltd (KCEL) — was formed to have the pub recognised as an Asset of Community Value and returned to the community at a fair price. Their campaign was ultimately unsuccessful.
The Plough had served the community of Kington Langley for close to 400 years. It was bought during a pandemic, transferred to a Brethren gospel trust, and the community's campaign to save it failed. The trustee who helped purchase it was already a director of the trust that received it.
Open & CandidThe Down Gospel Trust's own accounts for 2020/21 stated its future plans as follows: to acquire land near Kington Langley, obtain two further local halls, and progress a project likely to cost in excess of £400,000 towards a planning application. The Plough Inn acquisition is consistent with those stated aims — at a cost of £508,800, significantly above the original £180,000 car parking estimate, funded in part by contributions from gospel trusts around the world.