Shottle Hall
19 June 2025
Sector: Hospitality
Location: Amber Valley
Shottle Hall stands on the edge of Peak District National Park and forms part of the famous Chatsworth House Estate.
It has been open since February 2009 and is a family run business offering weddings and events. There are 12 permanent employees with an extra 15-20 casual employees during peak season.
Challenges faced
The business faced the same challenges as many others in the form of rising energy costs. There was also a need to push its mid-week offer for corporate hire, fundraising events and birthday parties as well as launch its new wedding barn space, which was completed earlier this year.
Solution and Impact
The business has been supported by the Accelerator project. Accelerator is funded by Amber Valley Borough Council’s share of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) and delivered by East Midlands Chamber.
Chamber Business Adviser, Cat Walls has been supporting CEO Joanne Nicol through a business diagnostic and growth planning. They discussed its marketing strategy and social media opportunities, especially to the corporate market to try to promote the mid-week offer. They also discussed recruitment and the expansion of the team and were signposted to local job fairs.
One of the areas discussed was the Help to Grow: Management training programme. Accelerator provided the £750 joining fee for Joanne’s daughter, Sarah Farkas to attend this leadership and management programme.
She said: “I found that with the course I was able to focus more on our business away from the day to day running, and it gave me a new perspective and fresh ideas.
Speaking to other business people enabled me to feel that you are not alone and that there are others who face similar challenges on how you achieve business growth when sometimes you can feel that everything is stacked against you. Speaking to them and working with them has given me confidence to move our business forward to achieve the growth we are hoping for.
I also found having a mentor particularly useful as it gave me the opportunity to speak to someone outside of our business, especially as ours is family run and it can be a bit difficult at times.”
Sarah attended 8 sessions and hopes to complete the course soon. One of the team also attended the funded action planning workshop ‘Selecting the Right Social Media Tools to help you.’
“Shottle Hall is an established business, but it was good for Sarah to meet other like-minded individuals for her personal development and growth.
We hope this will have a positive effect on the growth of the business.”
- Joanne Nichol, CEO
This initiative is funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) and delivered by East Midlands Chamber on behalf of Amber Valley Borough Council.
