A BUSTLING Corfe Mullen pub was packed with customers on Sunday evening when flood water started seeping up through the drains.

Landlord John Marsh was helping the chef in the kitchen of the Coventry Arms on the A31 while customers were watching the water creeping closer from the flooded River Stour at the bottom of the garden.

“We were almost oblivious to it,” said John, 28. “It came up quite quickly. We decided to close the pub early, at 9.30pm, because it was starting to come up inside.”

Environment Agency staff were checking on river levels and said it had peaked on that stretch.

Thinking they had seen the worst, John, wife Marie, with baby daughter Harriet, 15 months, went to bed.

“When we came down in the morning the whole ground floor was completely flooded, ankle deep,” said John, who grew up in Corfe Mullen and has taken over his first pub after running local hotels. “It was quite a shock.”

Only two-and-a-half months after he re-opened the 500-year-old pub, and was building up trade, he has been forced to close it while the wooden floor, floating off the joists, is ripped up, dried out and replaced.

Having taken over the tenancy of the Enterprise Inns pub recently – it had been closed for a month – and got family and friends to clean it up and give it a lick of paint, he was reluctant to close again, but had no choice.

The pub, which has a history of flooding, and was affected in 2000 and back in 1979, could be closed for two weeks, but he is hoping to get it dried out and the doors open to customers as quickly as possible.

“The biggest concern for us is reputation,” he said.

“The place was starting to buzz again and was getting a good reputation. We had a busy weekend and were looking forward to trade from the summer holidays and the Olympic Games.”