Lancashire Telegraph - February 12th 2007

Proud of Inn-domitable spirit

The Queen and the Prime Minister of Malta have been among diners at the Inn at Whitewell in recent months, bringing the venue to international attention. Business reporter Ben Hewes met Charles Bowman proprietor, to hear about the Inn’s colourful history and future plans.

For most hotels, seeing the kitchen fall into a local river could spell the end of business. But to the Inn at Whitewell, it meant the chance to carry out renovations and building work to improve the Forest of Bowland hotel and restaurant.

The potential disaster happened in the 1980s when the nearby River Hodder undercut the limestone under the Inn and the kitchen slowly split from the main building.

Amazingly, not a single day’s service was lost. Now almost 20 years later after a protracted dispute with landowners the Duchy of Lancaster – essentially the Queen herself – the lovingly carried out building work has recently been complete.

The Inn, parts of which date back to the 1100s, now has an improved kitchen and a bar area which now faces the picturesque views across the river rather than the road.

Charles Bowman is the third generation of his family to run the venue. He said: “They had to move very, very quickly to stop the rest of the building slipping into the river. They has lost the cellars, the kitchen an the building had got a serious lean on it.”

“Our architects were very swift in finding a company who came in and did what they could. The whole process was nearly comical. They were covered in water mud while they tried to secure it – which they did.

“A hotel without a kitchen isn’t very useful so we had to put a temporary kitchen in, which everyone could see into. That’s very popular now and I think we must have been one of the first to do it!

“We were working out of a room that was probably 18 feet by 15 feet, the most extraordinary size. But we never lost a day’s service.”

Originally the Inn, dating back to the 1300s, was a small manor house, lived in by keepers of the Royal forest.

A church was built nearby and a regular farmers’ market was held in the area and in the late 1600s to early 1700s, it became a popular Inn for those travelling to Lancaster.

Mr Bowman’s grandfather, Clifford, took the lease on the buildings and passed the reins on to his son, Richard, who died in 2005.

Charles, 40, who previously worked in advertising in London, took over in 2000 and is helped by his wife, Louise, and mother, Pam, who designed much of the Inn’s interior.

The venue has 57 full-time staff and several part-time and has 17 rooms with an extra four in the coach house.

But Mr Bowman is happy with the progress the Inn has made and is likely to take a break from any more large developments in the near future.

He said: “That’s it now, because of its size, and it isn’t exclusive here. We’ve always done brilliant food here. Everyone talks about gastropubs as a modern invention but some pubs round here have been trying to do it for years. We’ve used the same butcher’s shop for 30 years. It has its own momentum in a funny way. It attracts enough people on a weekend to keep us in business and happy. The on weekdays we have enough people visiting and staying the night to fill the dining room which is good.”

“The rooms are really working, drawing enough people to keep a buzz about the place. The prices are always sensible and it’s an easy birthday treat.

“I am very proud, there is not much to do with it now. We can carry on tweaking and adding things to it but ostensibly it is what it is.”