Activities

Four Pillars Hotels operates a collection of three- and four-star hotels in the Cotswolds, Bristol, Oxford and Thames Valley areas.

The company is part-owned by Oxfordshire building firm Ede, which built the group’s Witney hotel in 1989. Ede undertook the construction or conversion of the following three hotels in Oxford and Wotton-under-Edge and retains a majority stake in the properties.

Timeline

• 1974: The group’s chairman Brian Murtagh and projects director John Oldman set up Four Pillars to run restaurants in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire. The company is named after the four pillars built to support the roof of a guesthouse in Olney, Buckinghamshire, during its conversion into the group’s first restaurant.
• Early 1980s: The group quits the standalone restaurant business.
• 1982: Four Pillars buys the lease of a hotel in Osterley, Middlesex, which it has managed for 18 months.
• 1986: The landlord of the Osterley hotel offers the group the lease on a hotel in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.
• 1989: The group buys some land in Witney, Oxfordshire, for a hotel that is built and initially owned by Kidlington-based building firm Ede. Four Pillars manages the hotel and buys it in 1997.
• 1996: The hotels take on the Four Pillars name.
• 1997: The Oxford Thames Four Pillars, which is majority-owned by Ede, opens.
• 1999: The Oxford Spires Four Pillars joins the collection.
• 2001: The Tortworth Court Four Pillars hotel opens at Wotton-under-Edge, near Bristol in South Gloucestershire.
• 2004: The company opens the Four Pillars Academy, which offers a two-year graduate training programme for up to 15 trainee managers a year.
• Summer 2003: The group sells the 61-bedroom Osterley Four Pillars in Isleworth, Middlesex.

Operating data

Turnover for 2004 was £19.7m (2003: £1.9m)
Operating profit for 2004 was £1.9m (2003: £2.2m)

Number of hotels: five ( all three-star except for the Oxford Thames and Tortworth Court hotels which have four stars)
Number of bedrooms: 600

Abingdon Four Pillars, Abingdon, Middlesex (62 bedrooms)
Witney Four Pillars, Witney, Oxfordshire (83 bedrooms)
Oxford Thames Four Pillars, Oxford (60 bedrooms)
Oxford Spires Four Pillars, Oxford (115 bedrooms)
Tortworth Court Four Pillars, Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire (189 bedrooms)

Number of employees: around 700

Strategy

The company is interested in new properties along the M4 corridor which are within an hour’s drive from head office.

Source: Four Pillars

Chief executive

Charles Holmes

Key directors

Chairman: Brian Murtagh
Executive director: Mike Stevens
Financial director: Rex Clayton
Sales director: Vicky Begley
Operations director: Brian Fraser

Contact

Olney House
Ducklington Lane
Witney, Oxford
OX28 4EX

Tel: 01993 700 100

Website: http://www.four-pillars.co.uk

Commentary

Four Pillars has built up a stable of hotels within an hour’s drive of its head office in Witney, Oxfordshire and future expansion will follow a similar blueprint.

The company’s business-to-leisure split is 70:30. While four of the five properties are based in Oxfordshire, the group says its varied styles and locations attract different customers so they do not compete against each other. For instance, the Oxford Spires is a large, contemporary hotel five minutes walk from the city centre while the smaller, country-house style Oxford Thames has parkland, river frontage and two medieval barns housing a bar and lounge.

The group’s building partner Ede is currently constructing a four-star, 120-bedroom hotel on the edge of the Cotswold Water Park near Cirencester that is expected to open in the spring of 2007.

The group’s democratic approach to management means general managers and head chefs are represented on the board and so have a say in decisions that affect the company.