hotelThe Hotel Inspector · Season 11, Episode 7 · Aired May 21, 2015
The Little Thatch Inn
Gloucester
It is still up and running. It trades today as The Thatch Inn.
What happened after
14th-century timber-framed inn/restaurant/hotel, reportedly hosted Henry VIII in 1535; now trades as 'The Thatch Inn'; official site live with current seasonal offers.
What happened on the show
Alex Polizzi travelled to Gloucester in series 11 to transform the Little Thatch, a fourteenth-century inn reputed to have hosted Henry VIII in 1535. At the time of filming it was a twenty-three bedroom hotel in decline, run by Jackie McDougall, then 71, and her daughter Beth. The pairing of a genuinely ancient, characterful building with a business sliding downhill is a recurring shape for the show, and Polizzi's task was to convert the property's deep heritage into a reason for guests to book rather than a museum piece losing money. The historic timber-framed inn had the story and the setting; what it needed was the commercial discipline to make that history pay. Jackie McDougall and her daughter Beth's declining 23-bedroom hotel aired in May 2015 before the ancient inn continued under a shortened name.
After the cameras left
The Little Thatch survives and now trades as The Thatch Inn at Quedgeley near Gloucester, an inn, restaurant and hotel. Its official site is live with current seasonal offers and a Companies House registration cited on the page, a firm sign of operation as of 2026. The ancient inn Polizzi worked on kept going under a lightly trimmed name, though whether Jackie McDougall's family still runs it is not independently confirmed. Either way the fourteenth-century building remains a working hospitality business, one of the series 11 cases that held its footing.
Sources
Confidence: high. Last checked 2026-07-19.
What is there now
Street imagery via Google Maps. Location approximate.