A HEREFORDSHIRE landlady who ran one of Britain’s last surviving parlour pubs has died, aged 94.

Flossie Lane manned the tiny Sun Inn in Leintwardine single-handedly for almost 25 years, having lived in the village all her life.

She has this week been described by villagers as “a very special person”.

The pub was run from her front room, with a red-brick bar and no till. Customers sat on wooden chairs around trestle tables and were asked to put beer money in jam jars.

It was handed five stars by the Classic Basic Unspoilt Pubs of Great Britain group, which described it as “probably the best pub in Great Britain”.

“Flossie loved company and people in general,” said Doug Griffiths, who runs a butchers in the village high street.

“She was a very special person.

If she liked you, she liked you but she didn’t suffer fools gladly. She would tell you straight what she thought of things.”

Flossie, who was herself teetotal, only served beer and wine on the premises.

Hobsons beer from the Cleobury Mortimer brewery was most commonly served – straight from the barrel housed on her kitchen floor.

She took over the pub with her brother in the mid-1930s and ran it on her own after his death in 1985.

Flossie had not been well for a number of years and very rarely left the Sun Inn.

A few years ago, regulars helped convert a downstairs room for her after she became increasingly frail.

“One of us regulars would take it in turns to put her to bed,” said Gary Seymour, who owns the Fiddler’s Elbow chip shop next door to the pub, on Rosemary Lane.

“She was very trusting,” he said. “Regulars used to pour drinks and put the money in a biscuit tin.

“Flossie was very kind and generous and gave to a lot of causes in the village. She never had a drink herself.

She preferred a cup of tea.”

He said her local knowledge was very good despite not venturing out, with customers supplying her with the latest gossip.

It is believed that Flossie was educated at the village school and her dad had been a policeman in Ross-on- Wye.

Her funeral took place at Leintwardine church on Tuesday.