HUNDREDS of people descended on a village pub that has no fewer than 138 landlords .

The Maybush Inn, in Farm Road, Great Oakley, was saved from closure by a group of deter mined residents, who clubbed together to raise £86,110 to buy the pub .

It had closed in April last year and there were fears it would be tur ned into housing or demolished.

However, the Great Oakley Community Hub, chaired by Mark Godfrey , raised the cash to clinch the much-loved hostelry .

On Saturday, Harwich and North Essex MP Bernard Jenkin raised a glass to mark the pub’s official reopening.

“It was absolutely rammed from start to finish – there must have been a couple of hundred people there,” said Mr Godfrey .

“It didn’t stop from 2pm.

I saw so many volunteers running around collecting glasses all day and it wasn’t until after 10pm the party died down.”

Mr Godfrey added: “I did have a quiet little moment myself where I sat down and thought ‘This is the point we’ve been aiming for, all those nights in front of a laptop planning have paid off’.

“I just wish my father could have been here to see that day.

He died two weeks after we got the keys, but he would have loved it – it was all he kept asking about.”

Mr Godfrey said the pub would be setting up a stall to offer refreshments to participants of the Tour de Tendring bike ride on Sunday.