Luxury hotel closed after estate repossessed

Eleanor Lawson & Kevin Reide
BBC News, West Midlands
BBC A Victorian red brick building with dozens of windows in front of a lawn. Two signs are wedged into the grass giving directions to the mansion and Wroxall Court. BBC
The four-star Wroxall Abbey Hotel closed after the estate owners said the leaseholder's tenancy was terminated

A luxury hotel has closed after its tenancy was terminated and the estate repossessed.

Wroxall Abbey Hotel, situated between Warwick and Solihull in Warwickshire, closed on Monday with the loss of about a dozen jobs.

Catherine Quinn, the director of Wroxall Manor Limited which owns the estate, confirmed to the BBC that the company had terminated the leaseholder's tenancy.

The tenancy of the four-star hotel had belonged to JGBM Hotel Limited. A director of the firm said he was shocked at the termination.

"This was completely unexpected and came as a total shock as we had been in positive discussion with the landlord as recently as 15 January," Paresh Thakkar said.

"From a personal standpoint I am extremely heartbroken as I had invested a substantial amount of time, money and care into ensuring the success of Wroxall Abbey Hotel.

"I would like to apologise to our guests, our beloved members of staff, past and present and the local community for any inconvenience caused as a consequence of the termination."

Previous issues

As a hotel, Wroxall Abbey has faced various difficulties over the last few years, including its operating companies twice filing for administration, in 2019 and 2022.

In 2019, couples who had paid to use the hotel as their wedding venue spoke to the BBC, fearing they had lost thousands of pounds after it closed. At the time, company directors did not respond to a request for a response.

The 72-bedroom hotel was within a Victorian Gothic mansion in 27 acres (11 hectares) of countryside.

The estate dates to the middle of the 12th Century when it was first established as a Benedictine Priory of nuns and remained as such until its dissolution under Henry VIII in 1536.

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