Beer’s Youth Hostel opened its doors to the village for a special lunch and show locals what they can offer.

Around 50 locals came along for the barbeque, which was part of a national scheme launched by the Eden Project in Cornwall to bring communities together.

Grace, who works at the hostel and cooked the food for the ‘Big Lunch’, hopes it gave the hostel a chance to show people what it can offer not just people who need a place to stay.

She said: “There were people from our head office there to talk to people and tell them what the YHA is all about.

“People didn’t realise they could come up here for meals or get a drink.”

Along with burgers and sausages, the staff served salads and vegetables from their garden, and were even supplied some extra greens from a local farmer.

Grace said he saw the signs up around the village for the lunch and decided to come over with his family and donate some food.

Jon Norman, the hostel manager, said he wanted to let people know what was happening up at the ‘quiet end’ of the village and also open their latest art exhibition.

This works are produced by local artist Rebecca Greenwood, who was at the ‘Big Lunch’ to talk about her art.

The hostel staff had been putting up fliers around the town in the recent weeks, and were pleased to get such a good response from the residents of Beer, who came along for cream teas on the lawn, games, face painting and a treasure hunt alongside animals from one of their local partnerships at Hush Farm.