A pub landlord has been asked to take down a picture of Pippa Middleton’s bottom as it could ‘cause offence’ and told to reinstate a 16th century queen.
Richard Hammond, 52, who runs the Queens Head in Ampthill with his son Daniel, 28, initially put up a sign of Catherine Middleton to mark the Royal Wedding in April.
Then he replaced it with a picture of her sister Pippa’s famous rear after a comment that Kate wasn’t yet the queen.
But now he has been told to reinstate the original sign featuring Henry VIII’s first wife Catherine of Aragon, who was imprisoned in Ampthill Park after failing to provide the king with a male heir.
Mr Hammond said: “It was only a bit of fun and when we put the picture of Kate up we had a constant stream of visitors and people taking photographs.
“Then we put up Pippa’s bottom and that went down equally as well. That was a couple of weeks ago.” But during a meeting with pub management company Camelot on Monday on behalf of Charles Wells, it was decided that it would be best to take the sign down.
It is understood that some complaints had been made about the new picture.
Mr Hammond added: “So we are stuck with the Catherine of Aragon but she’s in need of a bit of blusher, we thought the other signs would brighten the place up a bit.” Local resident Charlie Garth, who wrote a letter of complaint to Bedfordshire on Sunday, said: “We must remember that Ampthill is a historic Georgian market town.
“We don’t want disgraceful pictures of ladies’ posteriors on our pub signs. That sort of behaviour might be acceptable in the fleshpots of Flitwick or Luton, but not in Ampthill.” A spokeswoman for Charles Wells said: “We turned a blind eye to the new sign at first because the picture of Kate was very topical and quite funny and proved something of a talking point.
“But we feel the joke has gone a bit too far now and it could cause offence.
“We have our own signage scheme which provides consistency across the estate and helps people recognise our pubs.
“So we have asked the landlord to return to the old sign showing Catherine of Aragon.”
