Menzies Hotels have recently refurbished the Restaurant in Prince Regent Hotel. L to R; barman Shain Sharman, Manager Stuart Friell and Elvis Kurtulaj. October 04 2012

A Chigwell hotel set in a beautiful early nineteenth century building has received a major refurbishment of its bedrooms and restaurant to embrace its vivid history.

The Menzies Prince Regent, Manor Road, was relaunched on Thursday following an £800,000 make-over to its Brasserie restaurant and 38 of its guest rooms.

General manager Stuart Friell said: “We have been planning a refurbishment for the last few years and we didn’t want there to be too much disruption to our customers during the Olympics so we had a small time frame in which to do the work.

“We asked our customers what they expected from a four star property and invested accordingly.”

A number of the bedrooms in the former Barnardo’s children’s home and adjoining chapel were given a complete makeover including new floors and decor.

Mr Friell said: “The building, which was built around 1826, is steeped in history and we wanted to embrace this. We are currently looking for old photos of the house to display.

“The Brasserie and 10 rooms in the original part of the building had a complete A to Z refurbishment while 28 of the other 51 rooms in the former chapel have also been finished.

“We took them back to their shell and we wanted to draw attention to the stain glass windows.”

Each room took six weeks to complete and the rooms that are yet to be refurbished are expected to be completed within the next year.

Part of the hotel’s rebranding was to improve the quality of the services on offer and everything down to the breakfast has been updated.

Mr Friell added: “The Menzies hotel brand was not as well known on the high street as we’d hoped so we wanted to get the name out there. We had a very positive reaction from people at the launch who we wanted to re-introduce this well-known landmark.”