The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Away from the scrum
World Cup winner Josh Lewsey brings pop-up bars to the South West
It’s been the best part of a decade since I last went clubbing, but I’m not letting that stop me now. Tonight, I’ll be dusting off my glow sticks and heading to SkyBar, a pop-up event that’s making its way around the South West this summer, stopping at various wonderful outdoor locations en route, including Polperro on the south coast of Cornwall, and Harlyn Bay, near Padstow.
Tonight’s site is suitably dramatic, set on a clifftop overlooking the surfers’ hotspot of Croyde Bay. This rugged part of the north Devon coast is the sort of place where locals don wetsuits in dune-backed car parks. (I spy plenty of VW campervans lurking nearby). Coastal locations are a favourite of the team behind SkyBar – which bills itself as an “après sea” event – but this summer’s venues aren’t exclusively so. Events have been lined up at the Somerset village of Chew Magna and a farm near Exeter. In Croyde though, you can’t escape the sea. As I enter the open-sided, circus-like stretch tents, wild waves rise beyond.
My companion for the night is Josh Lewsey, the former London Wasps winger and World Cup-winning England rugby union player. Long before retiring in 2009, Lewsey had ambitions beyond rugby, completing a postgraduate diploma in law and setting up a business consultancy, which led to work for PricewaterhouseCoopers and Citigroup. “Sport was a profession for me,” says Lewsey, “but I’ve always had a job outside of rugby.”
SkyBar is his latest endeavour, conceived while on his 25-acre farm in the Cornish fishing village of St Agnes, which Lewsey describes as “a place that rears tough men with warm hearts”. It’s where he met his business partner, Tim Bawden, who runs the local pub, The Taphouse. Together with some friends, they launched their first pop-up in St Agnes two years ago. The event proved so successful that they expanded it to three locations in 2015 and eight venues this year. “I have a genuine love of the South-West,” Lewsey tells me. “When I was playing rugby, coming to St Agnes was my escape. There’s no pretension. It’s very proudly not ‘Chelsea on Sea’. It’s just very wholesome.” We make our way over to one of SkyBar’s several specialist bars to order a glass of Ca’ Bolani prosecco. Elsewhere, custom-made cocktails and ice-cold beers are being served. A man sporting a Hawaiian shirt comes into view, and extends a hand. He turns out to be Tim Bawden, who tells me how he and two friends once blagged their way to the World Bodysurfing Championships in Hawaii by claiming they were the UK national team. Two of them baulked at the 25ft waves of the Banzai Pipeline; but one proudly finished sixth (out of six).
It’s this sort of enthusiasm that has led Bawden to convince a host of artists, including George Ezra and Ben Howard, to play at his St Agnes pub over the years. For SkyBar, he’s invited them back, as well a group of up-and-coming local artists.
On cue, Suzie Mac takes to the mic for an acoustic set, as people sit on hay bales sipping orange Cosmos and fruittopped Brambles. Mac is a regular at Bawden’s pub and, a vicar’s daughter, she wows the crowd immediately.
As evening falls, fairy lights flicker around the tents. I make my way to a cluster of street-food shacks to order a venison burger which arrives oozing with cheese, mustard mayo and red onion. Across the grass, Lola’s Wings is plying pulled-chicken sandwiches. It’s all a lot more relaxed than I’d imagined, with mixed-aged groups lazing around, listening out for the next live performance (this time by Cornish lad called Joe Francis).
Indeed, with its cocktails and snappy street food, SkyBar is aimed at a sophisticated crowd of 25- to 40-somethings. “We want to create wholesome, fun nights, themed around music, that hopefully we’re not too old to enjoy,” says Lewsey. “It’s about beautiful views and upand-coming artists”.
A while later, I’m almost ready to put away my glow sticks. But then I hear the DJs taking to the decks in the main tent. They’re playing the sort of hits that get the crowd dancing – and tonight, I’m one of them.
Essentials
Tickets for the SkyBar cost £15 in advance from the-skybar.co.uk – the next events are tonight at Polperro, Cornwall; Harlyn Bay, Cornwall, from August 18-20; St Agnes, Cornwall, from August 25-28; Chew Magna, Somerset, from September 9-10; and Exeter, Devon, from September 15-17.