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Change for the better

The Fossebridge Inn, which is on the Roman Fosse Way in Gloucestershire and close to the old Roman villa at Chedworth, was built more than 350 years ago. It was first recorded in 1634, but no-one is sure if it began as a private residence or a coaching inn. “However, we know it had become a coaching inn by 1759 as it was then known as Lord Chedworth’s Arms, named after the wealthy landowner who lived at nearby Stowell Park,” says Robert Jenkins, the current owner. “Then in 1780 it became a hotel, was extended in 1820 and a gable end was added in 1860.”

Robert arrived five years ago, having bought the place after it had fallen into a very run-down state. “The previous owner had continued to run it as a pub, but it deteriorated, and he applied for a change of use. He wanted to turn it into a series of weekend flats. There was a terrific outcry from the locals and, all in all, it was a very controversial issue.”

The local council who had turned down this man’s application were told he would appeal. “So the upshot was that the council suggested that he get a market value on the property and put it up for sale. If no-one bought it, he would be allowed to go ahead with his plan,” says Robert.

Unfortunately for the owner, Robert spotted the discreet For Sale notice in the Estates Gazette and, having checked the planning situation, made an offer to buy. “And the rest is history,” Robert adds. “I was looking for a new project and my son had decided he would like to run a pub. However, that impulse didn’t last long and it’s my daughter Liz – a Prue Leith-trained chef – who now manages the hotel. As previously said, the place was in a poor state, there had even been a fire just four days before I bought it.”

So, for the first couple of years, while the place was being renovated and revived as The Inn at Fossebridge, Robert lived in one of the outbuildings. “It may have started life as a barn or one of the stables as it is in the same row as other agricultural buildings. Apparently, it was converted into a two-bedroomed residence in 1864 for whoever owned the inn back then. About ten years ago, it was extended to give two extra bedrooms and a bathroom. Many people – including me – think it looks like an old Victorian schoolhouse. It was rather like a schoolroom inside too as it had a big old boiler and a rather nice old stone chimney breast with a big stone-lined fireplace dividing the two sitting rooms. The main sitting room had a double-height ceiling and the kitchen had a quarry tiled floor. There were stripped-pine doors everywhere.”

The first things Robert did when he arrived in January 2005 were to put in a new boiler,  change the central heating from oil-fired to gas, add a wash basin to one of the bedrooms and redecorate throughout. “Later on, I put a wood-burning stove into the drawing room,” he says. “As the place overlooks a lake dug into the grounds in the 1960s, I then named it Lakeside Cottage.”

The lake had been created by the simple action of damming a spring which ran down the hill into the grounds, and it is now stocked with trout and carp and visited by herons.

Then, two years ago, Robert married Veronica (a second marriage for both) and, as an interior designer, she added a feminine touch.

“We put in a new bathroom, but what with the improvements going on at the hotel, we seemed to have been bitten by the renovating bug,” says Robert. “So we’ve now begun converting a wreck of an old stables just along from here. It has a leaking roof and cobbled floors as nothing has been done to it since Regency times, but it has all the potential for becoming a four-bedroomed home. So we may be moving next door in the not too distant future.”