Classic Lodges, the nationwide group of carefully selected high-end hotel properties, has welcomed the well-known and recently refurbished Plough and Harrow Hotel in Birmingham as the latest addition to its Associate Hotels portfolio.One of the oldest hotels in the city, the Plough and Harrow was built in 1704 as a wayside inn and has lately been the subject of extensive renovations in order to restore the traditional building to the highest standards of accommodation. The £750,000 hotel-wide upgrade included refurbishments to 36 bedrooms, the restaurant, the lounge, bars, conference rooms, roofs, heating systems and Internet access, with further work planned in the future to create eight new executive bedrooms in the Grade II listed part of the building.
The hotel’s picturesque appearance and proximity to the city centre has already made it a popular location with guests and particularly for weddings, according to Robert Smith, Managing Partner of the hotel: “We have had more than 40 bookings made by wedding parties this year, and many dates in 2013 are now already booked up.
“Other special events hosted by the hotel, however, are also attracting a growing number of visitors,” he explains, “including our Murder Mystery dinners held each month, which sell out very quickly, and our Murder Mystery weekends, of which there are usually three or four a year and which have proved very popular.”
The Classic Lodges Associate Hotels programme offers independent hotels of a similar size the opportunity to share the Classic Lodges brand and to benefit from sales and marketing support provided by the Classic Lodges headquarters in Chorley, as Richard Smith, Director of Marketing and Associates at Classic Lodges, explains:
“We are absolutely delighted to welcome the Plough and Harrow into the Classic Lodges fold, as its historical provenance and its superb quality are utterly reflective of the Classic Lodges brand and the high standards that we strive to maintain across our portfolio of properties.
