A brewery has explained why a popular pub has reopened after suddenly closing at the beginning of the year.

Regulars feared Ye Olde Swiss Cottage, in Finchley Road, had closed "without a whimper" on January 2.

Candice Temple got in touch with the Ham&High saying she went there on January 5 and it was "just closed, no notices, nothing".

"It's been a great place to go to," she said. "Has it been closed for good without so much as a by your leave?"

The historic chalet style pub, built in the 1840s, is managed by Samuel Smith's Brewery.

Christian Horton, of the Samuel Smith Old Brewery Company, said the pub had reopened on January 10.

He added: "The pub needed new beer pipes fitting. It should have taken three days but ended up taking seven.

"You can dismiss all the rumours."

Candice said she was "pleased" it had reopened. "You would have thought that they would have at least put a notice on the door telling people what was going on," she added.

Ye Olde Swiss Cottage was originally built as a coaching inn on the outskirts of London, and was then surrounded by fields.

It served traditional English beer to working men coming in and out of London and also housed a dairy selling milk and cheese.

Today the community pub is a modest drinking hole surrounded by lanes of busy traffic and dwarfed by the nearby Odeon cinema.