It's last orders for many British pubs. Beer sales are tumbling, costs are rising and some analysts estimate that tenants' profits could collapse by 90 per cent over the next year.

The soaring number of pub closures looks set to continue. But Ted Tuppen, chief executive of Enterprise Inns, which owns almost 8,000 hostelries, is surprisingly sanguine about the prospect.

The laid-back former accountant argues that the pub cull is merely an extension of what is happening to village shops, churches and local post offices. “Times change,” he shrugs.

Thirty years ago, people had comparatively little choice when it came to their leisure time and, apart from the odd visit to the cinema, many spent most of their evenings down the pub. Today, surveys asking people how they spend their leisure time get responses ranging from sitting in front of the computer to visiting shopping centres.

These are not the only social changes that have affected pubs. Attitudes to drink-driving and male-only drinking have shifted, alcohol has been demonised and smoking in public places has been banned.

As a result, pubs have had to transform their offering and they are now as likely to serve cappuccinos, chicken tikka and afternoon tea as a pint of bitter.

Over the past 20 years, beer as a proportion of sales has fallen from 70 per cent to 30 per cent and that percentage is expected to fall further as pubs continue to evolve to cater for changing tastes and social mores.

Until the collapse of the property market, many uneconomic pubs would have ended up as houses. Indeed, a number of companies sprang up to swallow huge numbers of distressed pubs with the aim of redeveloping them or selling them on for alternate use.

The current state of the housing market appears to have put paid to such a strategy for now, although it will doubtless return. And, who knows, there might be other uses for them.

In the 18th century, many of the coffee houses that had become popular places to exchange news and conduct business started to metamorphose into trading exchanges and insurance markets.

The proliferation of coffee houses on the British high street over the past decade should serve as an example to the pub industry that things not only evolve but can sometimes come full circle.

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