CAMRA members gathered at the Peveril of the Peak in Manchester to celebrate the life of legendary landlady, Nancy Swanick.

Nancy passed away aged 96 on 28 July. She had held the licence for 55 years, since 1971, and it is believed that she was both the oldest and the longest serving landlady in Britain.

The Grade II-listed Peveril of the Peak, known simply as the Pev by locals, is renowned for its striking late-Victorian, green, ceramic façade, along with its interior of outstanding national historic importance, featuring quality woodwork, dado of green-and-cream tiles, stained glass, fixed seating and ornate bar.

The Central Manchester branch hosted a social to raise a glass to Nancy and presented a special award to the Pev’s general manager, Samuel Hunter, commemorating her long service to the hospitality trade.

Central Manchester branch chairman Sean O’Mahoney said: “It was a genuinely lovely evening. It was good to see so many faces, old and new, from our own branch, from Trafford and Hulme, which the Pev sat within for years, and from well beyond both, all of them in to celebrate Nancy’s life. That is exactly what she would have wanted, a busy pub and people talking. The Pev is clearly in safe hands, and after the year this family has had, that is the best thing any of us could have hoped to see.”

Dan Leonard of Trafford and Hulme CAMRA said: “For more than 55 years, Nancy dedicated her life to the Peveril of the Peak. She became far more than its landlady – she became one of the defining faces of Manchester's hospitality. Warm yet wonderfully forthright, fiercely protective of the pub’s character and deeply proud of what it represented, she ensured that the Pev remained exactly what it had always been – a proper pub, full of history, conversation, laughter and community.”

Read Dan’s full tribute to Nancy here.

Pictured, from left, Samuel Hunter and Sean O'Mahoney. Photo by Adam Tweedie.