A pub company is investing £2.3m in taking over an historic city centre hotel.
JD Wetherspoon will convert The Bull and Stirrup in Upper Northgate Street, Chester, into one of its hotels, previously known as WetherLodges. Contracts have been exchanged unconditionally with completion set for September 5.
The pub company has applied for a single storey rear extension and internal alterations to provide 10 refurbished hotel bedrooms with en-suite facilities and new WC facilities to upper floors.
Wetherspoon’s has a 25-strong hotel chain in the UK which sits alongside its 930 pubs, including Chester outlets The Square Bottle in Foregate Street and The Forest House in Love Street. There is no opening date for the new city centre hotel at the moment.
Spokesman Eddie Gershon said drinks prices at the new venue were likely to be similar to those in the existing Chester premises.
He said: “I would imagine as and when this pub opens it will have very similar if not the same prices as other Wetherspoon pubs in Chester. I think our first pub in Chester must have opened about 20 years ago and it’s always been a very good area for the company.
“We are always looking at opportunities and I suspect this opportunity simply came up. We have not got any accommodation in Chester at the moment but it is an incredibly popular city from our point of view and we believe people will be attracted to a good value hotel attached to a good pub.
“We will want to change the lay-out. We never take over buildings and leave them as they are.
“However, we won’t mess it up and any buildings we take over will be developed in a sensitive manner.”
The Bull and Stirrup gained its name from when the cattle market was run at Gorse Stacks.
