AS predicted here a few months ago, The Swan at Loddon is up for sale, its owners clearly having given up on it. The estate agents’ board went up today offering the old coaching inn as a freehold property. Will anyone else take it on a pub, as a restaurant, as a hotel? How about a cafe on the ground floor and flats upstairs? There are lots of questions for Enterprise Inns and any new buyers. And lots of potential too. The blurb makes clear just what an extensive property this is; two bars, a dining area suitable for 20 covers, a beer cellar, an entire four-bedroomed flat on the second floor and sizeable outbuildings at the back on a one acre site. So what about the tiny market that still musters every Monday? A cluster of stalls huddled on the car park constitute Loddon’s last claim to be a market town. And what about the Loddon Swan Bowls Club and its manicured green? All the Victorian writers raved about it and I guess it could have been in existence for much longer. The “Tenure details” section of the sale document runs as follows: “Freehold with vacant possession on completion (except in respect of the Bowling Club which has no formal agreement to use the Bowling Green). Ouch. Let’s hope for a new owner with a heart and a sense of history.
This fantastic building needs a few quid spent on it. Ideally an entrepreneurial hotelier could add a few rooms on the first floor, convert and add to the outbuildings to create a courtyard of rooms out back to create a little boutique hotel and wine bar.
ReplyDelete.....If only I had the cash.