Family brewery opens first hotel

The Joseph Holt brewery has just opened its first hotel after acquiring a former Premier Inn next door to its Cat and Lion in Stretton, Warrington.

Together the two have now been renamed as the Cat and Lion Country Pub and Hotel following a refurbishment, which has stripped out all the previous insignia.

The 173 year old Manchester based brewery, which has been in the same family for six generations, owns 127 pubs across the North West, seven with a small number of bedrooms or less.  The new hotel, fulfils a long time ambition by the 173 year old brewery to offer more extensive accommodation.

Dennis Maddocks, estates executive of the brewery, said: “When we heard the property was for sale it was too good an opportunity to miss – offering a chance to turn our already popular and historic Cat and Lion pub into a venue for country house style accommodation too.”

Based in the village of Stretton in Warrington, the Cat and Lion was built in the 1600s as a coaching inn,  and still retains some original features.