Guy Ritchie sells beloved Punch Bowl pub in Mayfair

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels director and Madonna’s ex-hubby Guy Ritchie has sold his famous Mayfair pub The Punch Bowl.

The sale, announced this morning, will see the institution become part of the Cirrus Inns group of bars and pubs run by Alexander Langlands Pearse.

Pearse is best known for his partnership with Cadbury heir John Cadbury. They set up Longshot Limited together in 1994 in order to buy famous Fulham Road pub The Goat in Boots.

Ritchie purchased The Punch Bowl for a reported £2.5m in 2008 with his then wife Madonna and proceeded to build it up into a favourite celebrity hang out. When the couple divorced, Ritchie insisted on being able to keep the 300-year-old bar and remained a regular.

Princes William and Harry, David Beckham, Sophie Dahl, Jude Law, Kevin Spacey and even Leonardo DiCaprio and Justin Timberlake are known to have dined there.

However, in recent years the fancy boozer has had its fair share of ups and downs, facing frequent noise complaints from Mayfair residents.

According to sources interviewed by The London Evening Standard, Ritchie sold the bar with a heavy heart and only on the condition that its character be retained by the new owners.