A long building, two short biographies.
The Gresham Arms has been an inn since 1672. We bought the freehold in 2014 and reopened it in 2016. The hard part is keeping the careful work invisible.
Tom and Eleanor Gresham.
Tom cooked at a one-star place in Bath for nine years before we bought the freehold. Eleanor ran front-of-house at a hotel in Cornwall, before that at a wine merchant in Bristol. We met in 2007, married in 2010, bought the inn in 2014, and reopened it in 2016 after two years of careful work that nobody photographed.
Eleanor Gresham, host“We bought the freehold the year our daughter started school. We are still here. The walls are older than that, by some margin.”
Tom runs the kitchen. Eleanor runs the front of house and the eight rooms upstairs. Between us, the bar, the dining room, the rooms, and the lane outside. The dog is a lurcher called Stitch and he is asleep, mostly, in the snug.
Three centuries of stone, two years of work.
The earliest record of an inn at this address is 1672, in a Quarter Sessions bond for the licensee, who is mentioned by surname only. The building has been an inn ever since. We are the seventh family to hold the freehold.
When we bought it in 2014 the kitchen was a 1970s extension, the rooms had been refurbished some time in the 1990s, and the dining room had been used as a function suite. We restored what wanted to be restored, replaced what could not be saved, and left alone the things that had earned their place. The work took two years and a contractor who knew the difference between old and ruined.
The bar is the original 17th-century room. The hearth is original, the beams are original, the flagstones in the snug are original. The kitchen is new. The rooms upstairs sit on the original floor plan. The plumbing does not.
Twelve farms, three breweries, thirty bottles.
A short list, kept short on purpose. Every name on it has been on it for at least two years. We add a new one when something else falls off.
- Otter’s End FarmSalt-marsh lamb, mutton
- The EstateRoe deer, pheasant in season
- Coombe FarmBeef, oxtail, marrow bones
- Bottom LanePotatoes, leeks, onions
- Wenlock CheesesThe cheese course
- Foxhill BreweryThe bitter on the left tap
- Carrick Wild AlesThe pale on the right tap
- Brunel CiderThe cider, when in season
Come and see it.
A meal, a room, or both. Two working days to a reply, always from one of us.
Make an enquiry
Booked weekends, mostly. Try a Wednesday.