Beers to flow at Captains Flat Hotel this weekend as the pub reopens

For almost 40 years after it was built, women were not allowed to step into the main bar of the Captains Flat Hotel.

But they’d peer in the windows in the early evening to see if their husbands were still there after knocking off from work. That was until the publican frosted the glass and they couldn’t see in.

Today, the pub is owned by a woman: and she’s on a mission to make the ‘old girl’ a glorious landmark that draws people in from right across the region.

Sharanne Witt is starting by re-launching the pub’s restaurant with high quality, old fashioned pub grub five nights a week. She’ll add a cafe for those who prefer a coffee and a pastry to a beer and a packet of salt and vinegar chips.

And then there’s the 20 rooms of accommodation upstairs — perfect for those visiting friends and relatives in the ‘Flat, or coming to the small town (population 473) for a weekend away. (Captains Flat is located just 61km – or 38 minutes – south-east of Canberra.)

“But the first thing we’re going to do is get the bar going,” Sharanne laughs.

“That’s where the money comes from.”

For Captains Flat-born Sharanne, owning the local pub is “surreal”. It’s also a beautiful tribute to her family’s history in the small former mining town. Sharanne’s grandmother was the cook at the pub for many years in the 1950s, and she and Sharanne’s mum lived at the hotel.

“It’s like I’ve come home,” Sharanne says.

"I've met people that knew my grandparents, and know my mother. It's lovely. There's so much nostalgia here."

Captains Flat Hotel was established in 1938 to help quench the thirst of exhausted men leaving work at the Lake George Mines. At its peak, more than 500 men worked at the mine, which mined lead, silver, zinc and sulphur, as well as copper and gold.

The hotel was once home to the longest bar in the southern hemisphere, seating close to 50 men at a time, until (rumour has it) an angry miner who’d been kicked out for disorderly behaviour came back and started cutting up the end of the bar with an axe.

There’s only one female toilet in the entire pub, a confronting reminder that the building was once definitely not a place for women. The accommodation upstairs harks back to life in the 1930s, with shared bathroom facilities, and a beautiful sitting room where people staying at the hotel would gather and chat.

"People new to Captains Flat, like teachers, used to stay at the pub and get to know people by the fireplace in the sitting room," Sharanne says.

Lovingly restored by the owners before Sharanne, many of the pub’s art deco features are still in tact, including light switches, wardrobes, the bathroom sinks in the rooms and the grand old teak staircase.

“It’s so beautiful and there’s so much to do out here in the area: barefoot bowls in summer, a heritage walk, a water wheel with a fairy garden near Hoskinstown,” Sharanne says.

“And we’ll welcome you at the pub with open arms.”

Captains Flat Hotel, located at 51 Foxlow Street, Captains Flat, officially re-opens to the public on Saturday 29 June 2024.

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