A village pub is set to step in and save its local post office from closure - but there will be no pints served with pensions.

Grewelthorpe, near Ripon, will lose its three-mornings-a-week post office, currently held in the porch of a cottage, unless a replacement is found swiftly.

Samantha Buckingham, 29, has resigned as postmistress after three years because her family are moving to Minorca.

But with no-one on the horizon to take over, Katherine Furmidge, landlady of the village pub, The Crown Inn, agreed to apply for the post. She has already met with a postal official in an effort to secure the lifeline service for locals.

Mrs Furmidge said: "People are keen to see that the service is not lost to the village because they regard it as a vital facility."

A Post Office official has been to inspect The Crown for its suitability, and if, as expected, the scheme goes ahead Post Office rules will forbid the pub to serve pints at the same time as dispensing pensions or other postal services.

"That will fit in well with the pub. The post office would open in the morning as it does now and close at noon when we open the pub," said Mrs Furmidge, 29, who had not planned to take over until she found the service might be threatened.

When Mrs Buckingham, took over the present office at Primrose Cottage it was held in the lounge. But her husband Darren, 24, built a porch to accommodate the service.

The Buckingham family, with their six-year-old son, Ben, and daughter Amy, four, are moving to Minorca, where Mr Buckingham has been appointed head greenkeeper at a nine-hole golf course.

The present office is due to close on April 5.

Updated: 15:54 Thursday, February 15, 2001