hotelThe Hotel Inspector · Season 7, Episode 5 · Aired May 16, 2011
Merlin Court Hotel
Ilfracombe, Devon
Good outcome here: the business is still trading today.
What happened after
Beachfront hotel with playroom/outdoor playground; active Facebook page.
What happened on the show
Alex Polizzi's series 7 case at the family-owned Merlin Court in Ilfracombe centred on a business under threat from rising debts and dwindling occupancy, and on a family that was not pulling together. One of her priorities was simply to get the Shears, who ran the themed Devon hotel, working as a team rather than at cross purposes. A struggling seaside hotel is hard enough to turn around without internal division, and Polizzi's brief here mixed the operational, tackling the debt and empty rooms, with the relational, aligning a family whose disunity was compounding the financial trouble. The beachfront setting gave her something to build on if she could steady the people running it. The debt-laden, family-divided hotel aired in May 2011, with Polizzi's priority of uniting the Shears as central to the case as any refurbishment.
After the cameras left
Merlin Court is still open, trading as a beachfront hotel on Granville Road in Ilfracombe with a playroom and outdoor playground pitched at families, and keeping an active Facebook page as of 2026. No official domain was confirmed directly, with the evidence resting on the social page and aggregator listings, so the open status sits at medium confidence. The family that Polizzi worked to unite appears to have kept the Devon hotel going, leaning into the family-holiday market its facilities suit.
Sources
Confidence: medium. Last checked 2026-07-19.