To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video. Up Next. A group of villagers have defied the odds and raised over £600,000 to save their local pub after a generation-bending TikTok campaign.
![[BNPS.co.uk (01202 558833) Pic: MaxWillcock/BNPS Video download link: https://we.tl/t-moyRbsLJZL Pictured: Friends of The Elm Tree Inn outside the pub. A campaign to save a historic pub where bouncing bomb inventor Barnes Wallis stayed has raised ??180,000 after going viral on TikTok. Locals in the village of Langton Herring, Dorset, are in a desperate bid to raise the ??600,000 needed to save the Elm Tree Inn by March 3. The group managed to raise over ??300,000 through shares but then fundraising stalled, so they decided to try their hand at the Gen Z slang trend on the social media platform.]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/SEI_239871563-859a.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
Older residents of Langton Herring in Dorset joined forces with their younger counterparts to create a series of videos in which ‘Boomers’ (older villagers) talked about their pub using Generation Z slang. The viral videos, created by the Friends of Elm Tree Inn community group, saw residents ‘spill the tea’ about the ‘delulu’ plans to shut down the pub, and ‘rizz’ people up to save it by donating to the cause.
Each video has been liked hundreds of thousands of times, and the campaign has seen cash flood in from more than 30 countries, with Americans particularly keen. Since the campaign was launched, the Friends of Elm Tree group has raised £520,000 in donations, which is enough to buy and reopen the Elm Tree Inn. A bid will be made on Monday, with further fund-raising and loans making up the balance.
Villager Nick Carroll said: ‘They see rural idyll England, a country pub with a history.’. Sir Barnes Wallis drank and stayed at the Elm Tree while his bouncing bomb, used in the Dambusters raid in the Second World War, was being tested nearby. And that’s why they’re the G.O.A.T.
