Ironbridge hotel visitors asked to share memories

But now they are preparing to mark their 25th anniversary at the Best Western Valley Hotel in Ironbridge and are looking for people who have celebrated special events at the hotel over the years to help them.

Lesley said: "2013 is certainly a special year for us.

"Reaching our silver anniversary of owning the hotel is certainly a milestone achievement.

"However, we couldn't have done it without our wonderful staff who are vital to the success of the hotel.

"We are both really proud of all of them.

"When we first saw the hotel in July 1988 we fell in love with it and decided we definitely wanted to buy it.

"Really it was the location that we fell in love with.

"We saw huge potential in the hotel but the location and surroundings, the backdrop of the hotel is beautiful."

The Cassons first met at university in Sheffield, then lived in Lincoln before moving to Shropshire to take on the hotel.

Lesley said: "I did catering at university and always enjoyed working in hotels, my husband had no history in catering so we were just looking for a business that we could run together and went all for it and ended up buying a hotel.

"We had very ambitious plans for how we wanted to develop and improve the hotel to transform it into one of the best in the Midlands.

"We have carried out extensive work over the years to increase the number of bedrooms and have built a new reception area and function room."

When the couple first took on the hotel, only two rooms had en-suite bathrooms.

The Cassons have now turned all 18 of the main building's bedrooms into en-suite, converted the out-building into bedrooms and added more on top of their new function room, bringing the total number of rooms in the hotel to 44.

They also built the reception or lounge area which links the out-building to the main building and function room and extended the kitchen.

All of this work has been done in phases to bring the hotel together as it is today.

Lesley said: "We hope all this hard work will pay off and look forward to continuing the success of the hotel over many years to come. Our proudest achievement is our staff, it's like a family here and we're so pleased that we have such fantastic people to share our work with. We couldn't have done it without them."

The staff clearly enjoy working at the hotel too. The sales and marketing manager has been at The Valley for 20 years, the chef has been there for 18 years and the general manager for 19 years.

The Cassons are now looking for brides and bridegrooms who married at the hotel, which dates back to the 1750s, over the past 25 years.

She said: "Many couples have chosen the hotel as the location for their perfect wedding or celebration over the years, including more than one generation. They appreciate the idyllic location and the excellent service we provide.

"We want to appeal for as many people as possible who have celebrated at the hotel during the time we have been here to send in a photograph and a short story about their special memories of that day.

"We will invite one of those couples to enjoy a free meal for 25 people to relive one of the best days of their lives."

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