Trust Houses
Trust Houses Ltd, hotel operator
81 Piccadilly, London, W1.
1903 The Hertfordshire Public House Trust Company Ltd was founded to revive the standards of the old coaching inns.
1959 Opened the first Little Chef roadside restaurants near Reading.
1964 Acquired John Gardner (London) Ltd, contract caterers, which continued to operate on independent lines but took on the contract catering activities of the group; Lockhart Group including Peter Merchant Ltd were transferred to Gardner's[1]
1967 Controlled the country's largest industrial catering activity through John Gardner's[2]
Late 1960s The company began to develop Post House hotels
1969 Trust Houses sold Kenya Coffee Co to Schweppes[3]
By 1970 the company owned and operated almost 200 hotels throughout the United Kingdom and overseas including the Grosvenor House, Hyde Park, Brown's, and Cavendish hotels. It provided other catering services, including industrial catering and 44 Little Chef roadside restaurants.
1970 Merger with Forte Holdings Ltd. to form Trust Houses Forte (THF)
See Also
Sources of Information
- Competition Commission report [1]
- Biography of Charles Forte, ODNB