IT may well prove one of the most expensive rounds yet.

For a group of drinking pals have quite literally run up a £250,000 bar bill – to save their beloved local.

The four men clubbed together to raise the money to buy The Buck Inn at Maunby, near Northallerton, North Yorkshire after it was feared it could close.

Local Mark Stokes joined with brother Paul plus friends Gary Hudson and Jon Buckley in the ambitious venture to keep the village’s only pub open for business.

“Many pubs are shutting or are threatened, and rather than letting that happen in Maunby we decided to buy the pub,” said Mark Stokes.

“The Buck Inn never closed, but it had been on the market for about two-and-a-half years and it went to auction and never sold.

“It was an option that it could shut down. I worked there as a waiter 18 years ago and drank there, and I didn’t want it to close, so I thought ‘let’s get it bought’.

“I brought in three others and we are now looking to make the most of it and to give it a real go.”

The free house also attracts other drinkers from nearby villages such as Kirby Wiske, which have no pubs of their own.

The venture comes as the British Beer and Pub Association revealed that a record 39 pubs a week closed in the UK during the last six months of 2008.

This equates to a total of 1,973 pubs closing their doors for good in the UK over the same period.

At The Buck Inn, the group of four have fitted a new kitchen and refurbished the business and they are hoping to reverse the trend.

Mr Stokes, who also runs The Buffalo Company landscaping business, said: “We have no experience of running a pub, but hope it goes well.

“It’s a straight forward pub and we would like it to be a very good village pub.”

The Buck Inn stocks local Yorkshire beers, and any food sold by the business will be sourced locally where possible.