Award-winning Bushmills Inn sold to Holywood investment company

Award-winning Bushmills Inn sold to Holywood investment company

The Bushmills Inn has been sold to a Holywood-based investment company owned by a grandson of the late boxing promoter Barney Eastwood.

The 4-star boutique hotel in the heart of the Causeway Coast was bought from Alan and Zoe Dunlop by Bernard Eastwood’s Wirefox, through its Marram Hotel Partners, for an undisclosed sum.

In 2017 Mr Eastwood’s firm bought Belfast’s CastleCourt for £125m.

A statement from the 37-year-old businessman’s company said the property will continue to operate in its current form with the existing team remaining in place.

Two multi-million pound refits turned the old coach house, which dates back to the 17th century, into a 41-bedroom hotel, boasting an AA Rosette restaurant, a cinema, conference facilities, a courtyard patio and even a helipad.

The main hotel was was built in the 1820s as part of a major redevelopment of the town by the local landowner Sir Frances Workman Macnaghten and from the late 19th century into the 20th, the inn was used as a boarding house, a private dwelling, a factory for making bicycles and, at least in part, a home for chickens.

Having bought the property in 1987, the Dunlops  added 22 bedrooms in 1997 and in 2009 the hotel grow to 41 bedrooms and luxurious suites.

It was named Northern Ireland Tourism Hotel of the Year in 2017.