Jolly Farmer/ Murphys Law Demolition
In 2025 Ward Demolition had the unfortunate position of Demolishing Drurys’ Murphys Law, the Ward Families local pub of 30+ years
Saying goodbye to our local
The Demolition of Drury’s nearly 100 year old pub has been one of Ward Demolitions most controversial projects to date. With one post receiving about 1 million views with over 600 comments. Many locals were sad to see it go, including us. Ward Demolition is a family owned and operated company, the Ward Family has lived in Drury for over 30 years.
Many have asked how we could take on the job. Simply put, we couldn’t watch our opposition butcher our pub. If it had to go we had to be the ones to give it the ending it deserved.
One of the ways we did this was by personally handing out thousands of bricks to those who had many found memories at the establishment. Pieces of the Jolly are spread far and wide for all to remember. We listened to stories of married couples who met there, staff who worked there 16.5 years (Rachel Beaumont pictured with local Celebrity Anthony Wright, owner of Drury Tyres) and people who celebrated 21st birthdays among many other milestones.
The structure was demolished by the Ward family themselves, with every member playing a part. Supported by our incredible Ward Demolition team, of which many live nearby and have their own connection with the place.
Rest in Rubble, Ye Jolly Farmer/ Murphys Law | 1929-2025
Strip out
Before Ward Demo was given the building, the client removed as many re-useable doors and materials inside the pub as possible for incorporation in the future re build. Even making an attempt to pull up the floorboards, which unfortunately crumbled during the process. You can see below, even the bricks were removed from the fireplace.
Avoiding a CAT-astrophe
Part of our standard procedure is to perform clearance checks on the building to ensure it’s completely clear of life before we begin work on the place and to ensure that no salvage was missed. During one of these many thorough checks we found a Kitten in the roof space. We rescued it and found it a home with one of our team members and his girlfriend, who were already looking for a kitten and already fully equipped to care for it. It has since been reported it is healthy and very well loved. We conducted multiple additional searches and did not find any more cats or Kittens in the building or surrounding area.
Asbestos Removal
The structure required extensive asbestos removal. It was built out of many different kinds of asbestos contaminated materials (ACM) including but not limited to Asbestos cement in select facade features, Asbestos pipes, Asbestos Rope in the walls and Asbestos flat sheet. Our team did an excellent job removing the asbestos under our strict asbestos removal processes and procedures. Ward Demolition has decades of experience removing ACM safely and correctly under the mandatory Asbestos Regulations.
Salvaging Leadlight windows before and during Demolition
Prior to the demolition of Murphy law pub we hand removed as many of the small leadlight windows that was safe to do so. The larger ones were too heavy and had to be removed during demolition as seen in our video. We managed to sell a few of the small ones to some locals. The larger ones were listed for sale, we dropped the price many times, nobody wanted them. We eventually gave them to a buyer of one of the smaller ones that may find a use for them. Highlighting a key issue we have recycling. We received immense outrage from the public for the few windows we weren’t able to save during demolition, but when it came to actually buying the very same windows we did save, there’s a concerning lack of interest.
Salvaging Native Timber during Demolition
When demolishing the Drury Wholesaler we were disappointed to find the timber was all painted pine. Pine does not sell well or at all so it is not worth saving. However we gave a few beams to a local that we managed to pluck out with the machine. Once we began machine demolition on the Murphys Pub we found extensive native timber. Our digger operator, Dalton Ward, skilfully and gently removed sections at a time in a way that kept the planks intact for our ground crew to then tidy up and stack. We loaded multiple truck loads of native timber to be sent to our salvage yard for sale to reuse.
