GOING PUB-LIC Loved up Harry and Meg pictured enjoying pub lunch of pie & mash and fish and chips on first UK outing since return

THE Duke and Duchess of Sussex went public for the first time since returning to the UK — having lunch at a cosy Cotswolds pub called The Falkland Arms.

Our exclusive photos show Prince Harry and wife Meghan holding hands on Thursday’s stroll to the boozer.

Both wore shades and Harry, 42, was seen glancing at a menu board outside the 16th-century pub, which is round the corner from the Beckhams in Great Tew, Oxfordshire.

Meg, 45, clutched her purse and looked casual in black with white pumps.

Harry wore a Santa Barbara fire department cap, a nod to their US home in nearby Montecito.

The couple, whose kids Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, were at school, were pictured together in Britain for the first time since we revealed the family were returning to the UK six years after Megxit.

Inside the pub, Meghan dined on a £18.25 portion of gluten-free beer-battered haddock and chips with mushy peas and tartare sauce.

Harry chose a £17.95 chicken, ham and leek pie with seasonal greens, creamy mashed potatoes and gravy.

The boozer still retains most of its traditional features, including flagstone floors and low beamed ceilings.

A pub insider said: “Everyone here gets the royal treatment — it doesn’t matter who you are. We’re lucky to get lots of different people visiting us, and everyone is treated like a local. When they visited, Harry and Meghan just acted like locals.”

The visit comes with the couple, who are no longer working royals, still battling for taxpayer-funded, armed police protection.

That row reignited last week when the Sussexes complained about paparazzi outside Archie and Lilibet’s school.

Two men, believed to be working for a European photo agency, were seen in a white van, with the couple’s spokesman calling their behaviour “reckless” and “irresponsible.

The pub is a two-mile walk from Soho Farmhouse where Meg does pilates. David and Victoria Beckham’s £12million home is nearby.

In TV gangster series MobLand, Pierce Brosnan’s character Conrad Harrigan mentions the pub saying: “Change the venue to Falkland Arms, Great Tew. They serve a nice pint there.”

It is named after Lucius Cary, the 2nd Viscount Falkland, who fought with Royalists in the Civil War and died in 1643.

His family still own the Great Tew Estate — where Harry and Meghan lived before they moved to the US.

At last week’s Labour Party conference, rural minister Jenny Riddell-Carpenter described a Britain of warm ale, black Labradors and country pubs as a “far-right nostalgic vision” that “never really existed”.

Harry and Meghan do own a black Labrador but it was not with them on their lunch date.

The pub insider added: “We’re a proper traditional English pub with black Labradors, but our ale is served cold. We have folk nights and Sunday roasts. It’s a great local spot so I’m sure they enjoyed it.”

Meghan and Harry were last seen in public together at a gala dinner in Victoria, Canada, on August 7.

Last week Meg was again at The Falkland Arms with best pal Kelly McKee Zajfen and her infant son.

And she was recently seen 16 miles away at The Three Horseshoes, Asthall, with talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres and her wife Portia.

Harry and Meghan have yet to visit his dad King Charles since they arrived on August 26.

But they are understood to have spoken by phone.

A friend said of the Sussexes: “They are enjoying exploring the area including local watering holes.

“Meghan has been spending a lot of time since their move to the UK making sure the children are settled and working on her As Ever brand.

“When they aren’t working, like most couples they like to spend time together.”

A Sussexes spokesman declined to comment.

Via: The Sun