Tony Hadley has joined the campaign to save The Rose & Thistle, a historic coaching inn in Haddenham near Thame in Buckinghamshire that closed in 2019.
The 65-year-old singer, who rose to international fame in the 1980s as the lead voice of Spandau Ballet, said he wanted to support the push to bring the pub back after years of closure. The Rose & Thistle Reborn campaign has raised more than £65,000, but that is still only about 10 per cent of the £750,000 needed to reopen the 18th-century building. Hadley urged people to back the effort by buying shares, saying: “It’s a fantastic little pub - I have been there many times in the past.” He added: “We have to preserve our village and small town pubs.”
The appeal gives the campaign a recognisable face at a moment when it is still far from its target. The Rose & Thistle was once part of the social fabric of Haddenham, but after closing in 2019 it joined a long list of village pubs that have struggled to survive as costs rise and trade thins out. Hadley’s involvement matters because he is not just lending a name to the effort; he is speaking as someone who knows the pub and believes it should remain part of local life.
His support also lands as he prepares to return to the road. Later this year, Hadley will launch the Christmas Big Band Tour 2026, a 19-date run across the UK that includes Oxford’s New Theatre on November 12. After last year’s sold-out shows, the tour will bring him back with the TH Band and a complete brass section, mixing classic jazz numbers, swing standards and 1980s hits.
Audiences can expect songs associated with Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Elvis Presley, along with big band versions of True, Gold and Through The Barricades. For Hadley, the two parts of his public life now sit side by side: one tied to preserving a pub he knows well, the other to a tour built on the songs that made him famous. The unanswered question is not whether he can draw a crowd. It is whether the Rose & Thistle Reborn campaign can turn a strong start into the full £750,000 needed to reopen the building.
