LEDBURY’S 16th-century Feathers Hotel has been officially reopened by the town mayor Phillip Howells, following a £300,000 refurbishment.

“I am delighted to see its enhancement at the heart of our town centre,” he said.

The High Street hotel, which has always been a focal point of the community, was bought a year ago by the Coaching Inn Group, which operates fourteen other coaching inns and hotels in market towns across the country.

Chief executive officer kevin Charity said it was the company’s ethos to breath new life into historic and landmark buildings like The Feathers.

He said: "It now features a large and comfortable coffee house, an eatery, and bar, and further work later in the year will increase the number of bedrooms from twenty to twenty-four.

“And as a further benefit to the town, the project has also generated the creation of ten new local jobs with opportunities to progress within the hospitality industry via the Coaching Inn Group's popular career training programme.

"We acquired the hotel knowing a refurbishment project would be needed pretty soon because while it was great business with lots of local customers, the property itself was ripe for restoration and regeneration."d.

The older of the two buildings making up the hotel dates back to the 1560s and was originally a private house before becoming an inn, originally called The Plume of Feathers, in around 1700.