Where did the last 15 years go? We can hardly believe a decade and a half has flown by since we first opened our doors here in the New Forest in July 2011. Our founder, Robin Hutson, had come to check out a slightly faded hotel, with a view to helping to bring it back to life. But it was when he wandered into the walled garden of the old house – originally an early 17th-century hunting lodge – that he had his “eureka” moment. Despite there only being a few sad carrots struggling along there, the idea of a comfortable restaurant with rooms, with menus built around the Kitchen Garden, took root – and the rest, as they say, is PIG history.
THE PIG was pretty much an instant hit with guests, locals and travel journalists alike. It’s hard to imagine now, but the notion of a relaxed country house hotel, gorgeously comfortable but determinedly unstuffy, with a restaurant serving delicious, unpretentious menus based around ultra-local produce, was groundbreaking. Gary Orris has been here (almost) from the very start: “I joined six, seven months after we opened. I’d been made redundant from my bookbinding career, and I just came in to ask for a few bar shifts to tide me over – and I never left!” He still sees lots of the original guests here today. “To them it’s a kind of extended home from home – no airs and graces, just giving people what they want,” he says. Fourteen years on, Gary is now a Duty Manager and welcomes many familiar faces through the year: “We’ve got one guest who comes every Christmas. There’s a couple who have come for the past decade, from the first year of their marriage when she was pregnant. They always come back with their child and we see how much she’s grown. And with lunch guests, there are probably 30 or 40 couples who’ve been coming from the start.”
Our current Hotel Director, Guy Freedman, started as Restaurant Manager in 2014. “It was in at the deep end. Then I did three years as Deputy Hotel Director here.” He moved on to get the top job at The PIG-at Bridge Place when it opened, returning to Brockenhurst in 2023, with a wife and two children. Guy understands why for many people this remains such a special hotel: “The New Forest is a very laid-back place full of beautiful things. And it’s the same with THE PIG. It’s maybe a bit more rustic than some of the other hotels, every window has such a pretty view. You can just be when you’re here, potter around the Kitchen Garden, look at the animals – and the rest of the New Forest is an extension of that. There’s no big tourist trail to hit, it’s a deeply relaxing place.”
Guy also thinks there’s something special in the spirit of this original PIG that persists: “When it opened, it was with that attitude of ‘will it/won’t it work; we’ll get through it together’, and that’s knitted into the place. Even new starters inherit that spirit, there’s a real resilience and bond to the Brockenhurst team.” Lots of the people who work in senior roles across all the hotels started here – from our Group Training and Development Chef Kamil Oseka and Group Head Chef Andy Wright to Ollie Hutson, our Group Head Kitchen Gardener. So much of what we all think of as the PIG way of doing things started here, even if it’s tweaked and added to with every new hotel: the greenhouse restaurants, animals in the grounds, 25 mile menus, Potting Shed treatment rooms, eclectic interiors and the oversized shepherd’s huts. Even the multicoloured glasses in the window of the bars started here, simply because there wasn’t room for a glasses cupboard so someone had the bright idea of putting glass shelves into the casement of the window.
As Guy points out, each PIG has its own character and charm, and there is plenty of friendly rivalry. “All the hotel directors appreciate each others’ hotels, but we also wind each other up. And the guests are as opinionated as us. Some do THE PIG tour, going from hotel to hotel, and we all compete to be the most loved. But it’s like naming your favourite child, impossible! Or PIG Top Trumps – each Pig has something that can’t be beaten.”
Alongside the many first dates, proposals, anniversaries and birthdays celebrated along the way, there have been some standout moments. The first Smoked & Uncut festival was one, with just 150 people, which Guy remembers as a seat-of-the-pants affair. The festival later grew to host 4,000 people, and this year has returned to Brockenhurst as the three-dayGarden Party. “It was great,” says Guy, “and one lovely thing was that lots of parents whose kids had worked at The PIG over the years when they were younger came along – they just wanted to come and experience it and felt a connection.
And because Gary and I have been here for so long, we remembered them all. That was great, very nostalgic.” Gary’s big standout moment is even more rock’n’roll: one night in the early years, he was on shift at 1.30am, “and the door opened and in walked Oasis, singing Wonderwall. They were staying and I think were recording locally.” The night was young (at least to the Gallagher brothers), so in the end, Gary actually opened up the bar again and served them drinks. But the charm of THE PIG remains the simple things. For Gary, it’s the view across the reeds in the pond to the Potting Shed, “for lots of people, that view is THE PIG, it tells you everything”. As Guy sums up, “It’s a country house with great food, served by lovely people.” And when he’s having a particularly stressful day, he just walks outside, looks at the lovely old oak tree on the lawn at the front of the house, “and I feel very lucky to be here”.
Why not pop by THE PIG in the New Forest to take a peek at where THE PIG all started! Explore our first ever PIG here.
