An abandoned pub which once drew customers from far and wide in its heyday could see a revival after four years.

Since being deserted, the Two Doves, on Canterbury’s outskirts, has twice survived developers’ bids to overhaul the 1880s tavern into homes.

But now a fresh lease of life could be breathed into the former Nunnery Fields venue as a landlady prepares to make her fifth offer.

Katrina Maclean, who currently heads up Canterbury’s New Inn in Havelock Street, explained her takeover bid has enjoyed “massive support”.

“I’ve made four offers over the last four years to buy it, and then [the owner] kept refusing to sell it to me, even though I had a valuation done which was lower than the price I’d offered.”

The owners instead offered Ms Maclean a leasehold “which was unrealistic for me to take on at the time,” she said.

“They were clearly trying to hold on to the building, they play a long waiting game, developers.”

Now that the move to convert it into two homes has been quashed again, Ms Maclean plans to negotiate another leasehold and take the tavern on.

“I’m just interested in running the business actually and I want it to be a community pub again because people around here who live in these direct roads have all contacted me over the years.

“I’ve had massive support to try and take it over.”

The Two Doves has been shuttered since 2019, and in both 2019 and 2022 LJW Developments lodged a plan to convert the venue into two homes.

Two applications to transform the free house were submitted in 2019, both of which the city council refused.

In the latter of the two, the planning statement tells how “for some years The Two Doves Public House has traded at a loss.

“It is small with a customer bar area of only about 50 sq m and it is awkwardly arranged, a small square room attached to a long thin room which leads to the WCs.”

When the application was rejected, developers appealed the decision to the government’s Planning Inspectorate and lost.

In the most recent bid from 2022, documents explain “it is believed that the property dates from the mid 19th century and has been used as a beer house and public house from the 1880s through to 2019 when it closed.”

The application was refused again by CCC in June 2022, leading to yet another appeal to the Inspectorate, which was dismissed on August 29 this year.

Philippa, who frequented the former Two Doves and lives in nearby Caledon Terrace, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “I certainly drank here on a regular basis,”

Restoring the pub to its former glory matters “because it’s a community pub,” she explained.

“There’s no real pubs around here, certainly not of the sort that care about the people that live in the area whether they live or they work.

“It’s a great asset and it upsets me to think that we’ll never have this again because they’re just dying out, neighbourhood pubs are dying out.”

Local councillors for the area have also been involved in the bid to save the pub.

“Developers just see it as a piece of real estate and they’re interested in buying it and moving it on, it’s their business,” said ward councillor Connie Nolan (Lab).

“But communities are left without a place to meet and talk and as you’ve seen the people in Caledon Terrace turned out literally with a few minutes notice to celebrate the fact,” she continued.

Fellow Barton representative Cllr Paul Prentice (Lab) added: “It was a great pub 20 years ago when I was a student.

“Canterbury is lucky there are plenty of pubs here but nationally we’re losing the community pubs that are run by people that care about the pub trade and who want to see these places as assets for the community.

“They’re not just places where you have a pint, they’re the glue that binds us together, they're the meeting points and melting pots of the community where people can come along.”