The Beefeater Ock Mill restaurant in Abingdon may have closed for good.

The restaurant is attached to the Premier Inn in Marcham Road, and a new Premier Inn is being built on the same road near the Tesco Extra.

Whitbread, which owns the hotel chain, said it was considering its options for the original Premier Inn building and the restaurant.

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The restaurant was locked up when the Oxford Mail visited yesterday morning.

The Beefeater website said: "Unfortunately this restaurant is closing on August 31."

A Premier Inn spokesperson said: "We can confirm that with the imminent opening of our brand new hotel in Abingdon we are exploring options for the future of our existing Abingdon hotel and Ock Mill restaurant.

Oxford Mail: The Beefeater Ock Mill restaurant

"Our team at the existing hotel and restaurant are aware of this and have been engaged during this process.

"We are hopeful that the majority of them will transfer to our new hotel and restaurant or to other Whitbread outlets in the vicinity."

A spokesperson added that the new hotel was now "really starting to take shape".

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He said: "The construction team has been working extremely hard to finish the building and all being well we hope to welcome our first guests to the 86-bedroom hotel in September.

“The new opening will bring our very latest offer to Abingdon, complete with our enhanced ‘Premier Plus’ rooms, and it will be a wonderful moment when we do open the doors and show our latest format hotel to our customers."

Oxford Mail: The new Premier Inn under construction

Recent openings in the Oxford area includes the Premier Inn in the city centre (Westgate – June 2021), at Botley (April 2021) and Oxford Airport (Kidlington) – January 2020).

The site next to Tesco Extra got planning permission as a Travelodge but the developers then switched to Premier Inn.

Gary Poulton, construction project and programme manager at Whitbread, Premier Inn’s parent company, said earlier: "Our partners Hinton Group are making good progress constructing the new 86-bedroom Premier Inn at Abingdon. 

"The hotel will bring our very latest format rooms and restaurant to Abingdon at a convenient location close to the A34 and easy access into Oxford.

"All being well we hope to be ready to welcome guests to the hotel in autumn, bringing more of our affordable hotel rooms to the pretty market town and further strengthening our offer in the wider Oxford area."

There is also a Hilton Garden Inn on Marcham Road.

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About the author 

Andy is the Trade and Tourism reporter for the Oxford Mail and you can sign up to his newsletters for free here. 

He joined the team more than 20 years ago and he covers community news across Oxfordshire.

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