LATEST News:
Re-building of The Beckford has begun
05 Oct 2010
A devastating fire in July this year inflicted massive damage to the Beckford Arms main building - thankfully, no-one was hurt. It is now known that the fire started in the bins, but the exact cause of ignition is still unknown.
We are pleased to tell all our customers that re-building of The Beckford has finally begun. It is a little too early to say exactly, but we believe we will be re-open in Spring 2011. Please keep check the website for up to date news.
Once again we would like to thank all members of the local community for all the support during this difficult year.
Fire Tears Through Wiltshire Pub of the Year, The Beckford Arms
18 July 2010
In the early hours of Friday morning, July 16th fire began spreading through the much loved and relatively newly re-opened Beckford Arms in Fonthill Gifford near Tisbury.
Sixteen guests were led to safety by head chef Pravin Nayar who was the manager on duty and sleeping in the staff flat in the loft. The fire alarm had been triggered by a guest and more than 50 firefighters were quickly on the scene, tackling the blaze.
Owners Charlie Luxton and Dan Brod, having been alerted by police, arrived on the scene at around 2.30am and began making sure guests were comforted, looked after and fully accounted for. Local B&B owner Clare Martin kindly re-housed the understandably shocked guests.
The Beckford, an 18th century coaching had re-opened, under its new owners in August last year, after a refurbishment costing hundreds of thousands of pounds and had recently been awarded “Wiltshire Pub of the Year”. In the last year The Beckford Arms had been widely acclaimed across the national press as one of the finest ‘pubs with rooms in the UK’ and leading food critics had unanimously praised the food.
Co-owner Dan Brod said:
"Obviously our first concern was to deal with the guests. We had a full house so we re-housed them in local B&Bs the best we could, and also our head chef who was living in the loft upstairs. Charlie and I are obviously devastated by the fire but very luckily no-one was hurt and our thoughts now turn to a major re-building project and getting the pub open again as soon as possible.
…Our immediate concerns are to look after our great staff as we are a major local employer, our suppliers and of course our customers. We had built a hub of the local community and only the night before the fire had hosted a charity fund raising event and Boules tournament raising over £2000 for local causes.
…We estimate it could take up to 6 months to re-open as the building is listed and timing will majorly depend on the co-operation of Wiltshire Council’s planning department.
…We have had to cancel at least 500 bookings over the next 6 months and were fully booked on weekends up until December.
…Charlie and I wanted to thank, particularly the Wiltshire Fire Brigade who were all superb, our staff who showed up straight away to help out and the local community who were wonderful turning up the next day with much needed cups of coffee and even home baked cakes. We owe it to everyone to re-build the pub to its former glory.”
Investigations are continuing into what caused the fire to start in a bin store. Deputy Chief Fire Officer Simon Ralph Jones, of Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service, said at the scene: "There was an extensive fire in the ground floor area which had gone into the first floor and into the roof as well and affected an adjoining property where there was one resident.
…We've got it under control now but we've lost part of the building where the fire was very fierce when we arrived.
…We've got a lot of debris and the fire investigation team are looking through that."
info@beckfordarms.com
