By Ian McConnell
A HOTEL in St Andrews which has been in the ownership of the same family for nearly two decades has been sold to Northern Irish private investment company Wirefox.
The three-star Ardgowan Hotel has been bought by Wirefox through its Marram Hotels business, for an undisclosed sum.
Wirefox said it “plans to operate the…Ardgowan Hotel in its current form, with the existing team in situ”.
Ardgowan Hotel will be the second property in the Marram Hotels portfolio, with Wirefox having acquired The Bushmills Inn in Northern Ireland earlier this year.
READ MORE: Energy bills: Conservatives’ scrapping of promise is an act of the utmost stupidity
Wirefox noted the hotel was “located within the heart of St Andrews and that “close neighbours include the renowned University of St Andrews and world-famous Old Course”.
Bought by Roy and Eliza McLachlan in 2003, the hotel is now run by the next generation of the family, brother and sister Duncan and Rachel, who are respectively director of catering and head chef, and director of marketing and business development.
READ MORE: Ryanair launches new routes from Edinburgh Airport, record winter schedule
Roy McLachlan said: “It's a pleasure to be handing over the operation and ownership of the hotel to such a professional group. The hotel has enjoyed many years of excellent performance due to its wonderful staff and I am convinced that both the staff and the hotel will enjoy a very bright future.”
Kathryn Robinson, investment director at Wirefox, said: “It’s a great time for us to be adding the Ardgowan Hotel to our growing portfolio, with all indicators pointing towards a bumper year for golf enthusiasts off the back of The Open.
“Welcoming the current staff to Wirefox’s extended team, while continuing to trade, will allow us to gain a deeper understanding of the business and continue to provide the much-loved service guests have become accustomed to. We’re grateful that the McLachlan family have agreed to work with us to ensure a smooth transition and we look forward to acting as custodian in the months and years ahead.”
Housed in a B-listed Georgian townhouse, designed by Scottish architect George Rae, the hotel has 36 ensuite bedrooms, seven of them in a section of the property dating back to 1820. The hotel’s Playfair's Restaurant and Steakhouse has been awarded an AA Rosette every year since 2015.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here