Time was when you couldn't stay away from the pub, even if you wanted to.
The pub was where the local football team was created, managed and fed, where village meetings were held and where romances flourished. In short, it was sun around which village life revolved.
The Duke William at Metfield, with its sign removed.But times change. Today jobs no longer exist in rural areas the way they once did.
The mechanisation of agriculture has taken most of these jobs out of the field and into the city.
New drink driving laws have restricted the amount a person can reasonably consume and get home with, and petrol costs have increased the cost of driving to the pub itself.
Chair of the Anglia branch of the British Institute of Innkeeping Roger Cawdron said: "Norfolk villages are now dormitories for those working in the city.
"People met husbands and wives there and went for anniversaries and funerals.
"But now in many places the heart is gone."
Heart vs head
Yet villages apparently on the brink of losing their heart are not always staunch supporters of their local pub.
The Duke William in Metfield on the Suffolk border was the only pub in the village, but closed because it was not getting enough customers.
It is currently undergoing renovation, but it remains to be seen whether it will reopen, due to a lack of demand, according to the current licensees.
This type of scenario though is not necessarily the result of not enough customers, local support, or even the economic pressures from elsewhere.
Chairman of the Guild of Master Victuallers Joe O' Riordan believes that often the landlords themselves are to blame:
"A lot of pub failures are down to the ignorance of the people going into running them."
"People think its an easy business with plenty of money in it.
"It's very easy to stand there during a busy period and see the money going in the till and think 'lovely', but they don't see the tax man standing behind the lanlord looking over his shoulder - let alone the pubcos and all the rest of it."
Such is the difficulty of running a pub that often landlords need to more accounting experts and sometimes even legal ones.
Papering over the cracks
"At one time we did a survey of the information that should be displayed in a pub, and it was something like 400 pieces of legislation that directly affected us", says Roger Cawdron.
"You need management training, financial training, product training and food and hygiene training for a start, otherwise it's like trying to take over a chemist's without a pharmaceutricals degree.
"But by far one of the biggest pitfalls is the stamina you need to keep going seven days a week."
