The final phase of a £1million redevelopment at a landmark Shropshire hotel has been completed.
A new gym and function room has been built at the Buckatree Hall Hotel at the foot of the Wrekin in Telford.
The £70,000 project to transform a loading bay with a 6ft drop underneath is the final phase of work planned by owner Grant Moon since he took over in September 2010.
Wayne Jenson, general manager, said: “The space was previously unusable but the potential was clear.
“The various trades associated with the build have done a fantastic job and we are delighted with the end result.
“It has been a much bigger project than anticipated and is another step for expanding the original country house.
“The new room is a much needed addition to our existing facilities which will cater for a wider variety of functions from business meetings and networking events to private dining.
“Our larger function room is a versatile space which can be subdivided to create smaller rooms, however, this has always been difficult to sell to smaller groups and Mr Moon had always intended to create leisure facilities here.
“It shows the continued investment by the family owners and we are very pleased to be able to offer such modern and practical space to our guests.”
The hotel has 62 bedrooms along with an 80-cover restaurant, a 50-cover bar and a 200-capacity function room.
It was owned by the Matrix Group and operated by Swallow Hotels until Mr Moon and his family bought it more than two years ago.
Since then, the bar, restaurant, banqueting suite and bedrooms have been refurbished and now the new gym boasts running machines, step machines and cycling machines along with flat screen televisions.
The latest function room has been named the Hesba Stretton room, the pen name of Wellington-based author Sarah Smith.
Miss Smith, a former pupil of the Old Hall school in Wellington, had her work bought and published by Charles Dickens in the 19th century.
Mr Jenson added: “We held a competition on Facebook so that our followers could come up with the name for the new room.
“We already have the Sir John Bailey Suite and part of the new Lander bar used to be called The Wrekin room so we wanted something different.
“There were a number of entries but Hesba Stretton really stood out amongst the rest.
“We felt it was important for our guests and customers to be involved in the naming and using social media proved a great way of generating ideas and gaging opinion.
“We always have our rooms named after local people or places because we are dedicated to the local area and there is so much rich history here.”
