The Royal Oak, Hail Weston a formal offer for the Royal Oak. The offer was not accepted. HWCPS made another, significantly higher, offer in 2015, but this was also rejected. After several years of negotiations, a group of villagers (and members of HWCPS) got together in 2016 to make a fresh bid to buy the Royal Oak, and on 31 January 2017 the sale finally went through. Renovation and restoration work began in the following weeks, with the assistance of roughly 50 volunteers. The Royal Oak reopened on Friday 19 May 2017. The Royal Oak, Hail Weston The Royal Oak is an 18th-century public house
HMS Royal Oak (08) who survived the sinking while serving as a Boy, First Class on "Royal Oak", served as the Royal Oak Association's Honorary Secretary. An annual ceremony of remembrance is held by the survivors and descendants of the crew at the Naval War Memorial, Southsea, on the anniversary of the sinking. The last remaining survivor of "Royal Oak", Arthur Smith, who had been a 17-year old Boy, First Class when the ship was struck, died on 11 December 2016. He had been on watch at the bridge and had jumped from the sinking ship, swimming in the wrong direction until he was