Heritage Estates plans to completely refurbish the 11-bedroom hotel and will invest up to £1m improving the rooms, restaurant and conference facilities.
Director of Heritage Estates Jon-Paul Davies told BigHospitality that the property ‘ticked all the boxes’.
“The hotel gave us the chance to take a property and add to it in terms of value to the guest, but also in terms of the property’s footprint as we’ll add to it in the coming years,” he said.
“It’s in a very strong location as well, a fantastic little spot tucked between Nottingham and Mansfield with great transport links as well as being close to the M1.”
Refurbishment
Initially Heritage Estates will undertake minor works on the building to honour existing bookings, with a full refurbishment programme starting in January.
“We’re going to go through a period of assessment looking at things like the central heating and the plumbing first,” explained Davies.
“One area that is very high on our list is the kitchen. It’s quite small and a bit of a mish-mash at the moment; we want create a better working space for the chef and his team.
“From a long term point of view we’re going to have a thorough refurbishment of the property. We’re speaking to the local authority about creating a purpose built function space to facilitate weddings and larger events, as at the moment they’re reliant on a marquee. We want to do away with that and replace it with a proper solid built structure. Then there’s the possibility of adding more bedrooms to the property.”
Individual hotels
Heritage Estates also owns the Kelham House Country Manor hotel near Newark-on-Trent, and Davies intends for all of their properties, including any the group might purchase in future, to keep their ‘own identities’.
“The hotels are very much their own property and we don’t want to come in and shoehorn how we’ve been running Kelham into how we’ll run Cockliffe,” explained Davies.
“We want to play on the strengths and the history of each hotel. For the past five years Cockliffe has had one or two rosettes in the kitchen, so quality food has always been its thing and that’s something we want to expand on. We intend to offer a very high quality service, but without the stuffiness, it’ll be relaxed and friendly.”
Heritage Estates is also interested in adding to its portfolio if the right opportunity were to present itself.
“My wife and I set ourselves a 10-year target and aim to have three properties at the end of that,” said Davies. “We’ll look to stay in the immediate area if we can, we love Nottinghamshire and it makes things easier from a management point of view as we’re very hands on. I think we have to concentrate on Cockliffe for a couple of years though.”