Jamaica Inn calls time on 100 years of hunts meeting on its land

Cornish pub used in Daphne du Maurier novel says there are no pluses, just minuses to hunt visits

A pub that was the setting for a novel by Daphne du Maurier has banned hunts from meeting on its land after 100 years of the practice.

The Jamaica Inn in Cornwall – immortalised in the 1936 novel of the same name about smuggling – announced the decision after the East Cornwall Hunt invited the Beaufort Hunt to meet there on Saturday, a move the pub called “extremely ill-advised”.

Both hunts said the venue on Bodmin Moor, its staff and customers had been targeted by “activists” online.

The Jamaica Inn, which was built in 1750 as a coaching inn for travellers, wrote on Facebook that it had never supported hunting but had allowed “hunts to start from the inn because of the 100-year tradition of doing so”.

It said: “Last Saturday the local hunt invited the Beaufort Hunt to join their usual modest gathering which the owner sees as extremely ill-advised. Taking this fully into account and the passionate views of some of the inn’s customers, the owner has decided to no longer allow any future hunt at Jamaica Inn.”

The inn’s owner, Allen Jackson, said some people had cancelled hotel and restaurant bookings since Saturday because of the association with hunting. He said that after hunts, “hundreds and hundreds of people, seemingly reasonable and rational, were telling us they were anti the hunt”.

Jackson told the BBC: “These were not extreme views but reasonable views. We have always lost money because some people won’t come here because of the association with hunts. There are no pluses, all we get is minuses. They never spent any money here – they never came in.

“The hunting fraternity want to make it seem we have been browbeaten and bullied into this decision but it is nothing like that whatsoever.”

Chris Luffingham, the director of external affairs at the League Against Cruel Sports, said: “We welcome this move by the landlord to ban hunts from his pub – it ties in with the mood of the general public, the vast majority of whom are sick and tired of this cruel and barbaric activity.”

He called on “more businesses across the UK to enhance their ethical credentials by breaking all ties to fox hunts”.

The Beaufort Hunt, one of the largest and oldest hunts in the UK, said the decision was “a result of activists targeting a rural business and attacking their customer base”. It added: “We hope the hunting community continues to show support for this local business as they have done for many years.”

The East Cornwall Hunt said it understood there had been “an orchestrated attempt online to intimidate pub staff” by “anti-hunt fanatics”.