Our story began in 2009 when Nick Duval our founder & CEO start his new journey with his late wife Sharon Duval, where together they always dreamed of running their own pub. In May they took on the lease at The Wise alderman in Kidlington and the rest was History. Sharon always wanting to be that lovely, caring and nurturing landlady she shined in the role and they started to bring new and exciting ideas to the pub which made it a roaring success.
After a short time the name changed to The Highwayman Hotel to help give it a new spring of life and also due to the connection in our family name being “Claude Duval” the famous highwayman. On October 2nd 2010 , Sharon had a tragic accident where unfortunately she passed away on her and Nicks honeymoon. Due to circumstances Nick had to retire from his Full Time job with BT to concentrate on the business. He took a real focus to the B&B side to the business and saw a massive potential to building an excellent reputation for guests staying in the rooms at the highwayman and continued to build more rooms and refurbish the existing ones.
In 2013 Mark Duval joined The Highwayman Hotel as an apprentice, after finishing one year of six form and unsure of what to do with his career, he gave the pub industry a go and fell in love with it. After completing his apprenticeship in 2014, he very quickly became General Manager and Director of the company. After some time, wanting to build and experience the restaurant side of things he joined House of Jacobs as a manager and worked in all of their establishments learning their way of trading. Replacing Mark, Ashley Walton became the General Manager after being Head Chef. At the start of 2019 Mark rejoined the Highwayman and his Father Nick to continue and improve on the ongoing business and look further afield for new and exciting adventures.
In November 2019, they added The Talkhouse at Stanton Saint John; known for good food and a beautiful cosy interior, it was a no brainer and fitted in with the rooms portfolio. Tasked with building a food trade, Mark Duval became General Manager and Landlord of the Talkhouse and very quickly with help from Head Chef James Clark built a Food trade that earnt runners up award with Fullers, Smith and Turner as best village pub award. Slowly after that the name Duval Inns was introduced with the acquisition of their third pub The Great Western Arms at Aynho. With a familiar feel to The Talkhouse both James Clark and Nicole Barclay took control of the pub as Head Chef and General Manager with Mark Duval taking a step back to take on a new role as Operational Director of all three sites.
Needless to say, they both have made the pub what it is today an excellent family gastro pub fulfilling all elements to the business serving delicious traditional food, looking after our amazing bunch of locals with traditional ales from Hook Norton Brewery and of course providing a lovely place to stay with 4 ensuite rooms. Since then John Kitson has come on board as a shareholder and director of Duval Inns previously always being around the pubs doing important jobs and Johns background being construction with having a successful business of his own in John Kitson Construction. Johns skillset has bought a crucial eye into improving and developing all sites further and to help bring Duval Inns build a reputation that we are proud of to this day.
Lastly we are very proud to say that all three sites have strong people in management and control with William Tattersall and Lana Morgan at The Highwayman, Couple Ashley and Lauren Walton at the Talkhouse and of course couple James Clark and Nicole Barclay at the GWA. With all done and said we like to look at ourselves as a local family company with a passion for pubs!