Have you ever thought about what would happen if your business were victim to a fire? How would your business cope in the aftermath? Well, these hypothetical questions have become the unfortunate reality for a business in Wiltshire.
The Beckford Arms is an 18th Century coaching inn, located in the sleepy Wiltshire village of Fonthill Gifford, near Tisbury. It is run by Charlie Luxton, who ran Babington House (a celeb-magnet establishment) for years, and co-owner Dan Brod. The inn also boasted a former Claridge’s chef. The Beckford Arms re-opened in August of last year after a massive refurbishment, costing hundreds of thousands of pounds. With such a lavish refurb, I wonder if they invested in some sleek chrome fire extinguishers?! It was awarded the ‘Wiltshire Pub of the Year’ award, and was also widely acclaimed in the national press as one of the finest ‘pubs with rooms in the UK’, and the food there had been unanimously praised by food critics.
So, the establishment was flying high, and doing very well. However, in the early hours of Friday 16th July, a fire began spreading through the premises. Sixteen guests were staying there that night, as well as head chef Pravin Nayar, who was the manager on duty, and sleeping in the staff flat in the loft of the building. Mr Nayar lead all sixteen guests to safety, after the fire alarm was triggered by a guest. More than 50 fire fighters attended the blaze.
The owners, Charlie Luxton and Dan Brod were alerted by the police, and arrived on the scene at around 2.30am. They made sure that all the guests were accounted for, and were looked after. Clare Martin, a local B&B owner, kindly re-housed the guests for the night.
It is understood that the fire started in a bin store, but investigations are continuing to discover what caused the fire.
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 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. We owe it to everyone to re-build the pub to its former glory.”
So, a major undertaking to get the business back on track. A fire can be devastating to any business, so it is hugely important to make sure that your fire safety procedures and equipment are up to date. Hopefully then you won’t have to deal with the fallout from a situation like this one.
