IT'S every drinker's ideal home - a country cottage attached to the local pub. Several rural Monmouthshire watering holes have closed recently, with pubs pushed to the brink after falling visitor numbers through last year's foot- and-mouth crisis.

But now one landlord has come up with a solution to save his pub - and it's guaranteed to give estate agents an interesting selling point.

For landlord Stephen Molyneux is converting the restaurant at the Black Bear in Bettws Newydd into a cosy cottage - semi-detached to the pub.

Falling trade and high rates, coupled with foot-and- mouth, spelled the end of several of Monmouthshire's country pubs last year.

So planners welcomed a proposal to keep the Black Bear in business. Mr Molyneux moved into the pub in 1994 after it closed for six months for £50,000 worth of improvements.

The pool room was converted in to a restaurant, and it quickly won fame as a place for fine food.

But Mr Molyneux said: "During the last five years there has been a decline in custom. "Two years ago we invested in bed and breakfast accommodation and this gave us extra income to keep the business afloat. We have attracted visitors from places as far away as America, Switzerland and Sweden.

"But the foot-and-mouth epidemic stopped that. And while there is excellent support from the locals, we need customers from outside the village." Now the restaurant will become a two-bedroom cottage, which will go on the market for between £95,000 and £130,000. And Mr Molyneux will continue to offer food to customers in the upper bar area of the pub. Regulars are delighted their pub is safe.

Rob Griffiths, of Birch Orchard, Bettws Newydd, said: "All that matters is that the pub stays open, because it is very popular with the regulars." The Black Bear, a free house, is the latest rural pub in Gwent to face difficulties because of falling trade. In the past couple of years the Halfway House at Talycoed, Monmouth, the King's Arms at Llanvetherine and The Three Salmons at Cross Ash have closed down. The owners of the Hostry Inn at Llantilio Crossenny, Mike and Pauline Parker, have also been given permission to convert part of the building into a home, but have continued trading for the foreseeable future. Jim Sharp, the licensee of the Red Hart Inn, Llanfapley, won a landmark ruling which saw his rates bill reduced to just £500 a year because he is losing money. But Mr Molyneux says planners have helped the Black Bear avoid that fate. "They have saved the pub from closing," he said.