Historic Kings Arms Hotel in Dorchester to reopen this week

New has met with old as one of Dorchester's most historic hotels reopens its doors this week.

The Kings Arms Hotel was bought in 2016 after it was closed by the former owners.

The Grade II listed building has undergone a £5 million pound renovation that developers say have restored it to the original building's former glory.

They've tried keeping and embellishing as much of the original architecture as possible.

Rob Greacen is the Managing Director of Stay Original Co, who own the building.

He said:

"This building has been such an important part of the town, so we feel a bit of a responsibility to make sure that everybody starts enjoying it all over again.

"We hope that we've found and embellished some of the character in the building and we hope that it will be really nice place for people to come back to again because so many people, I think, have seen it as an important building in the town.

"A building like this has changed so much over so many years years, all we've concentrated on doing is trying to find some of the original features or some of the more interesting features and giving them a chance to shine again.

Rob added:

"Although the ownership has changed hands many times over the last 100 years, it's mostly been owned by large corporates and been sold as one corporate has been sold to another, so it hasn't had a lot of love over that period.

"So our main job has been getting rid of this more corporate style that's been used in the building and trying to trace it's history."

It's thought reopening the hotel has generated more than 40 local jobs in hospitality.

Rob told Greatest Hits Radio Dorset:

"We very much want a wide-range of people to come here and enjoy this. It's not meant to be high end or low end, it's meant to be here for everybody, that's the key.

"Our strategy is to make the building busy, because our feeling is that people like to come to busy places, not intense so that you feel nervous that there are too many people there, but just a place where there are things going on."

The first phase of opening sees the bar and restaurant area on the ground floor opening, with socially distanced seating arrangements.

It also sees 20 rooms on the first floor open, with a further 15 or 16 rooms set to open next year.