ROB, MELISSA & HANNAH LUCKS
Rob, 61, Melissa, 60, and Hannah Lucks, 34 are owners of Chilton House B&B
Rob: My parents bought a hotel in 1979 while I was studying hotel management at college. I came back from college to help out at weekends and on holidays and stayed on.
Melissa: I came to work here and stayed in the hotel, met Rob and then we got married!
Rob: We worked with the parents for over 20 years but when Pops was ready to retire, we were ready to do our own thing and opened a restaurant in the town centre. After that we wanted to take a step back a bit and decided to transform our home into a B&B. Our daughter Hannah was born here. She has a very unusual syndrome and being so close to the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital meant that, in her early years, she had access to specialist care and support at this world famous hospital. Oswestry is such a safe, friendly and bustling town. There is so much happening for such a small place. Oswestry is one of those places that people come to by accident but once they arrive, they don't want to ever leave.
Chilton House was our home before we turned it into a B&B. It's a large Victorian house, a few minutes' walk from the centre of town. There are lots of original features and we wanted to celebrate that but add some quirky décor too. There are just three rooms for guests and each is completely different. It's the fantastically interesting people we meet that make running a B&B in Oswestry special. Once they get to know the town, people usually want to return. They arrive as guests but always return as friends.
On a sunny day, there is nowhere better than our large garden and we love entertaining guests out there. It's so peaceful even though we are so close to the town centre and it's a real sun spot.
Oswestry is one of those places that whenever you walk into town you usually meet someone you know and they have time to stop and chat. It may be the second largest town in Shropshire but it has that small town feel. Oswestry is a real market town that has lots of independent shops and the market is a great attraction. The pub scene is really good too. There used to be over 100 pubs which is a lot for a small town! There aren't so many now but what we do have is an eclectic mix of independently owned, traditional pubs. Having a local brewery and distillery on the edge of town means there are pubs that specialise in real beer but others do pub grub and there is a really vibrant music scene building again now the pandemic is ending.