At a champagne reception held last night (29 November), The Wood Norton, a former BBC broadcasting centre based in Worcestershire, was officially reopened as a newly-refurbished 50-room hotel and restaurant.
Glasses were raised to mark the rebirth of this building, which is now under new ownership, and has just undergone an extensive six-month £4m renovation. 200 guests were in attendance at the opening event, including local celebrities, Mayors, and MPs.
In the early 1900’s, when owned by European Royalty, The Wood Norton was the venue for the marriage of Princess Louise of Orleans, the Grandmother of the present King of Spain.
The BBC then bought the site in 1939 to establish an emergency broadcasting centre away from London. It became one of the largest broadcasting centres in Europe with an average output of 1,300 programmes a week. When the war was over, Wood Norton became the BBC’s engineering training centre.
