Godolphin Arms Hotel

What happened after

3-star 30-room pub/B&B run by Margaret 'Muff' Ashwood for 41 years; permanently closed 2024-11-03 on her retirement (84th birthday). Approved Feb 2025 for conversion to a mental health care residential facility relocating an existing Newquay service; adjacent hotel annexe to become staff accommodation.

Closure date on record: 2024-11

What happened on the show

The series 9 note on the Godolphin Arms records Alex Polizzi trying to persuade a 71-year-old hotelier named Margaret to change her ways in Newquay. This was a distinct property from the well-known Godolphin Arms in Marazion; this one, a three-star thirty-room pub and bed and breakfast, had been run by Margaret Ashwood for decades. The case fit a familiar type, an elderly owner set in long-established habits that a younger, sharper eye judged were holding the business back. The show returned for a 2014 revisit. The specific failings and fixes are not fully preserved, but the core of the episode was clearly the tension between Polizzi's advice and a veteran owner's fixed ways. Margaret Ashwood's fixed ways aired in the series 9 finale in August 2012, and the show returned in 2014 before her eventual retirement closed the pub.

After the cameras left

The Godolphin Arms has closed, on Margaret Ashwood's own terms. Having run the Newquay pub for forty-one years, she retired and closed it permanently in November 2024, on her 84th birthday. In February 2025 the property was approved for conversion into a mental health care residential facility, relocating an existing Newquay service, with the adjacent hotel annexe becoming staff accommodation. Local radio coverage confirms the change. This was not a collapse but a long-serving owner's retirement, closing a business she had held for over four decades rather than a failure of the trade.