One of Suffolk’s oldest and best-known seaside hotels is under new management – having been taken over by a national hospitality business.
The Orwell Hotel, Hamilton Road, Felixstowe, opened in 1898, built to take advantage of the huge growth in visitors due to the railway and the town becoming a fashionable resort, and has been a key feature of the year-round holiday trade ever since.
Businessman Richard Cattermole added the hotel to his chain of Elizabeth Hotels around 15 years ago.
Last year the Orwell was offered discreetly to the market by leisure property specialists Fleurets on behalf of the owner, Manor Investments (Ipswich) Ltd.
Bob Whittle, of Fleurets, said: “My brief was to seek and find a competent and experienced hotelier to take over the total operational running of the business in its entirety.
“Strong and varied interest in the business opportunity was expressed but I am delighted that Bloomsbury Realty Management has secured this substantial 68-bedroomed hotel and functions business and I wish the company much future success.”
Bloomsbury Realty Management specialises in operating hotels and wedding venues and has a portfolio of four hospitality businesses, three hotels in central London and a country house wedding venue in south London.
The company has its own online reservations network and receives circa 1.8 million visitors per year and 50,000 room nights per annum.
Gehan Raj, operations director for the company, said: “We are delighted to add the Orwell Hotel to our growing portfolio.
“The Orwell Hotel has been long established in Felixstowe. It is ideally located and we believe it has great potential.”
Bloomsbury Realty Management clearly recognised that there was an urgent need to service the demand for business/leisure accommodation and associated facilities in the town – with regeneration of the resort now taking shape quite rapidly.
Work is under way on the revamp of the pier head, and a multi-million pound rejuvenation of the gardens took place last year, and a new seafront park has opened.
A Premier Inn has also opened at the resort – on the site of the old Ordnance – and details of a Travelodge are expected to be announced soon.
Hotel’s long history
Manor Investments (Ipswich) Ltd, which has just sold the Orwell Hotel in Felixstowe, is part of the business empire of Suffolk property investor Richard Cattermole.
However, according to records at Companies House, Mr Cattermole resigned as a director of Manor Investments (Ipswich) on December 21 last year.
The only active director of the company now listed Abigail Cattermole, his daughter, who was appointed as a director of a number of the family’s other companies on the same date, although she has been a director of Manor Investments (Ipswich) since 1997.
Mr Cattermole’s Ryan Elizabeth Holdings group, from which he also stood down as a director last month, has owned many hotels across East Anglia and beyond since it was established in the 1970s.
Threee of the group’s companies, which owned 11 hotels and 13 pubs, went into administration in 2010 but the Orwell Hotel in Felxistowe was not among them.
The Orwell Hotel, designed by architect John Shewell Corder, was built in 1898, with its official opening coinciding with the completion of the town’s railway link to the East Suffolk line at Westerfield.
Originally owned by the Tollemache brewing family, the hotel has undergone several changes of ownership in the past 50 years including a period from 1974 to 1995 as part of the Queens Moat House group. Mr Cattermole purchased the hotel in 2002.
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