A care home has made popping for afternoon tea or a quick pint a piece of cake for residents - by opening a pub and tearoom in its gardens.

Staff at Cedardale Residential Home in Maidstone came up with the idea during lockdown while the older folk living there were simply unable to pop out for a drink with friends and family.

Cedardale Residential Home opens doors to its new pub

Today the Cedardale Arms was officially opened and welcomed soon-to-be regulars for their first visits.

Care home manager Wendy Ingram and the team at the Queens Road home, which cares for people with dementia, set about transforming a summer house into their very own bar and cafe with help from donations given following an appeal on social media.

She said: "We had the summer house in place and decided we would turn it into a pub, coffee shop, tearoom, so they have that experience of living in the moment.

"We put a notice out on Facebook just to say if anyone has got anything they would like to donate, and we have been inundated with bits and bobs for it. It's been really amazing."

The new venue will be open daily, and residents of the home can either come in on their own, with fellow residents or with their visitors.

"They deserve to be able to live in the moment," Wendy said.

"People think people with dementia forget, some do, but they need to live in the moment, full of joy, happiness and excitement, just like everybody else."

Today's grand opening was carried out by resident Des, who then dropped in for a refreshing gin and tonic, a welcome opportunity after more than a year without a trip out to the pub.

"I feel quite honoured in actual fact," he said. "She said 'I would like you to come down for the opening', I said yes, of course I'm coming down."

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