Gastro-pub sold for £1.75m

The award-winning freehouse pub and restaurant with eight bedrooms has been taken over by Silvergate Leisure Ltd.

It will be run as before and its 20 full and part-time staff retained, according to its previous owner.

The Swan is on the edge of the River Severn in the Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site. It won the Shropshire Pub of the Year Award in 2006.

A front-runner in the emergence of Ironbridge as a good food destination, it is packed every weekend.

The Swan was owned for the past four years by Telford business couple Graham and Gaynor McDonald.

They have sold it to Silvergate Leisure Ltd with a freehold guide price of £1.75 million through the Birmingham office of licensed property agents Christie & Co.

Believed to be the oldest pub in Ironbridge, The Swan Inn is a detached, three-storey, former 18th century malthouse located on the Wharfage.

It was an inn when the Iron Bridge was built. The pub comprises a main bar, two restaurant areas to seat 110 diners, eight en suite letting bedrooms, a one-bedroom manager's flat, a car park and two outdoor areas to seat 50 customers.

The Swan Inn derives half of its turnover from drinks sales, 40 per cent from food and 10 per cent from accommodation, achieving a net turnover in excess of £1 million and profits of more than £300,000 a year.

Gavin Wright, director of Christie and Co, said the sale attracted considerable interest. "Silvergate Leisure Ltd is a pub operating company with five other public houses across England," he said.

Mr McDonald said Silvergate were keeping on existing staff at The Swan and planned to continue running it as one of the best pubs in the county. "It remains the same and will remain the same," he said.