London hotel operator buys Amesbury venue
Fitzbride, owner of the St George hotel in London's Marble Arch, has bought the Antrobus Arms hotel in the Cotswold village of Amesbury, Wiltshire.
The Grade II-listed 17th century former coaching inn is a town hotel that sits alongside the A303, one of the main business and tourist routes from London to the West Country.
It has played an important part in the local community for a couple of hundred years and continues to attract local custom, weddings and functions, commercial business, tourists visiting Stonehenge one mile away, and trade from the military camps on nearby Salisbury Plain.
The hotel has 18 en-suite bedrooms to sleep 34 guests that includes a honeymoon suite and a room decorated with Beatle's memorabilia to commemorate the Fab Four's stay at the hotel in 1965 while filming Help!
Facilities include a bar with double opening doors into a large drawing room (both with open log fires), a meeting room to accommodate 10 boardroom-style and two restaurants.
The intimate Orangery can seat around 25 guests while the Fountain restaurant can seat some 65 customers and spills out onto a terrace balcony.
There is a two-bedroom owners' flat on the second floor and three bedrooms for staff to use.
Outside, the property has a walled Victorian garden with a Victorian cast-iron fountain that feature in the BBC Miss Marples film, Nemesis.
In the year to 31 May 2007, the hotel achieved a profit of £155,842 on a £696,138 turnover.
The Cirencester office of Colliers Robert Barry was seeking offers of £1.45m for the freehold.
By Angela Frewin
