By Ian McConnell
The DROVERS Inn at Inverarnan by Loch Lomond, which has been on the same site for more than 300 years and is on the West Highland Way, has been sold from an asking price of offers over £3 million to Edinburgh-based Bruce Group.
The T-shirts worn by staff and sold to customers say the inn was voted “Scottish Pub of the Year 1705”, Shepherd Chartered Surveyors, which handled the sale for ZXK Ltd, noted.
Shepherd said: “Known as one of Britain’s most haunted hotels, with regular reports of spooky goings on, The Drovers is one of the essential stops for walkers on the world-famous West Highland Way and provides attractive rooms and warm food and cold beer to many a bedraggled walker.”
READ MORE: Ian McConnell: Tories' criticism of Scottish Government pretty rich given their own report card
The hotel featured recently on the “Britain’s Favourite Walks” television programme, hosted by Julia Bradbury.
Shepherd noted the sellers bought the Drovers in 2004, adding that in their 18 years in charge they had taken “what was already a long-established business to new heights of success”.
READ MORE: Scottish ferry business owned by 84-year-old up for sale
Bruce Group is excited about the prospect of taking on The Drovers, Shepherd noted.
Kevan Fullerton and Scott Piatkowski are the principal directors of privately owned Bruce Group, which has a large portfolio of bars and hotels. Much of its portfolio is in Edinburgh, including Stramash and Whistle Binkies.
Gary Louttit, head of hospitality and leisure at Shepherd, said: “I am delighted to have been instructed to sell such an iconic hotel and to have been able to secure a sale of The Drovers on behalf of our clients.
“And I am particularly pleased to have sold The Drovers to operators whom I know will take the business on to a new level of prosperity in the future.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here