Hotelier Malachy McKeon, who built up the family-run Littlebury Hotel, in Bicester, has died after an illness, aged 81.

Mr McKeon and his wife Rose created the hotel at Littlebury House, in King's End.

His widow Rose said: "Malachy was the brains behind the hotel and I was the front man. He was very proud of the achievement in building up the hotel.

"When we started I had to be the licensee because a landlord could not hold two licences in one town. The licence was the first new one in the town for 100 years."

At one time the couple ran The Rose and Crown pub, in The Causeway, and the hotel.

Mr McKeon, an Irishman, was working as a driver at the Bicester Ordnance Depot when he met his future wife Rose Gardner, who was a welfare officer at the depot, in 1947. Her mother, Doll Gardner, ran a working men's club in Ambrosden.

The couple married in 1950 and took over the Rose and Crown in 1953. Six years later they bought Littlebury House and converted it into the hotel.

The Rose and Crown later closed and was demolished, along with the adjoining Bridge House, to make way for town centre improvements.

Its site is now the Market Square end of Manorsfield Road, with the NatWest Bank on the corner.

Mr and Mrs McKeon's four sons, Michael, Malachy, Paul and Denis, all work in the family business. They have eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Mr McKeon's funeral is at the Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception, in The Causeway, Bicester, on Wednesday, at 11am.