Star and Garter East Dean pub company in liquidation

The company that runs The Star & Garter at East Dean has gone into creditors’ voluntary liquidation, and a notice already published in The Gazette sets out the plan for the village pub to carry on under a new company.

Thomas Babb Brewing Company Limited, whose trading name is recorded as The Star & Garter, passed a special resolution to wind up at a general meeting on 5 August, according to the winding-up notice published in The Gazette on 10 August. Alexander Kinninmonth and James Prior of FRP Advisory Trading Limited were appointed joint liquidators the same day, a second notice records. That notice describes the nature of the business as a public house, with its principal trading address at East Dean, and James McDonald chaired the meeting.

The plan for the pub

What is intended for the business itself was set out in an earlier notice, dated 28 July and published on 31 July. In it James McDonald, a former director of Thomas Babb Brewing Company, gives formal notice under section 216 of the Insolvency Act 1986 that a new company, The Star and Garter Goodwood Limited, is to acquire substantially the whole of the business and intends to carry on trading as The Star & Garter.

That notice matters because insolvency law normally restricts the directors of a liquidated company from running a new business under the same or a similar name. Publishing the notice in The Gazette is the statutory step that allows a former director to be involved in a successor company using the pub’s name without breaking that rule.

The successor company is already on the register: The Star & Garter Goodwood Limited was incorporated on 24 April 2026, according to Companies House, registered for “public houses and bars”. The company being wound up was incorporated on 31 March 2016.

An estate village pub below the Downs

The Star & Garter describes itself as an 18th-century flint and brick pub in the heart of the Goodwood Estate, with a restaurant, two bars, a garden and three guest rooms. East Dean sits in the South Downs a few miles north-east of Chichester, and the pub is a short drive from Goodwood’s racecourse and motor circuit; the surrounding downland features in our guide to things to do in Chichester.

As of 12 August the pub’s website was showing it open seven days a week, from 9am to 11pm Tuesday to Saturday and to 9.30pm on Sunday and Monday, and taking bookings as normal. The site carries no announcement about the change of company.

What it means for you

If you have a booking, a room or an event planned at the pub: nothing on the public record says the pub is closing. The July notice sets out the intention that the business carries on under the new company, and the pub’s website is open for bookings. Any questions about a specific booking go to the pub itself on 01243 811318.

If the company owes you money: the liquidation is being handled by FRP Advisory Trading Limited. The Gazette notice gives Terena Ellis as the contact for creditor enquiries, on 01202 048037.

The liquidators’ formal paperwork, including the statement of the company’s assets and debts, is filed at Companies House in the weeks after appointment. We will report what those filings show for this East Dean business when they are published.