Receivers sell Danesfield House for more than £10m

Malaysian-based investors have snapped up Danesfield House, the luxury country house hotel near Marlow, Buckinghamshire, which collapsed into receivership in 1993.

Derek Gammage, partner in agent Knight Frank & Rutley's hotel department, said the 93-bedroom property had been sold for "substantially" in excess of the asking price of ú10m to the unnamed buyers.

The hotel, which has been operated on behalf of the receivers by Menzies Hotels & Leisure, will be run directly by the new owners. They intend to exercise an existing planning consent to build a leisure centre.

The Victorian house was originally due to open as a hotel in 1989, but was twice delayed by fires. It finally opened in 1991, but its Swedish owner, First Class Hotels, was unable to support the project's estimated £20m cost.

Danesfield's sister property, the Old Swan Hotel and adjoining Minster Lovell Conference Centre in Oxfordshire, is also close to being sold. Knight Frank & Rutley was asking £2.5m.