Ed Sheeran wins battle to keep pub sign at Suffolk home

Flame-haired pop sensation Ed Sheeran has won a battle to keep a 16-foot pub sign dedicated to his wife hung up at his £1.5 million country estate in Suffolk.

Singer Ed Sheeran has won the right to keep his Lancaster Lock pub sign hanging at his Suffolk home

As reported by the Daily Mail, Sheeran was ordered to take down ‘The Lancaster Lock’ plaque he’d put up without planning permission outside a Grade II-listed barn on his property, having turned the barn into a secret drinking den in 2017.

However, council planning bosses had a change of heart and this week announced that Sheeran was allowed to keep the pub sign hanging at his home.

“The signage does not cause me any concern and I judge that there is no harm arising from it that would adversely affect the character of the farmhouse,” said council planning officer Robert Scrimgeour.

Sheeran’s pub, The Lancaster Lock, is named after his wife, Cherry Lancaster Seaborn. In 2017 the singer applied for planning permission to create the private pub featuring beers on tap, underground rooms and a secret passage to his house.

The pub was given the green light, but had to be restored with bricks and tiles that were in keeping with the original barn. While planning permission was granted for the private pub, the 16 foot plaque was never given the go ahead.

Sheeran was inspired to install the secret watering hole and underground passage having visited film director Peter Jackson’s home.

“Peter Jackson’s house has got loads of secret passageways and underground tunnels. I went there and was like I want all of this on a smaller scale,” Sheeran told Zane Lowe in a 2017 interview.

In addition to his private pub, Sheeran has made a number of renovations to his historic property, including installing an underground ‘man cave’ with a music room and cinema beneath the grounds of his farmhouse.