Vision for future on Philip’s menu

Clough Manor owner Alan Tupman (left) and new general manager, Philip Harwood.

A NEW man has been brought in to help a local wedding venue reinvent itself as the “destination of choice” for diners.

Philip Harwood has taken over as general manager at The Clough, in Denshaw, and part of his brief will be to “restore it to the list of places people automatically think about when they are wanting to eat out,” according to owner Alan Tupman.

Mr Harwood (30), from Lees, has been headhunted from Peruga, in Marple Bridge, where he has been managing the 150-cover restaurant and wedding venue for 12 months.

He was previously general manager at The White Hart, Lydgate, where he started as a waiter and worked his way through the ranks to run the hugely successful hotel, functions, restaurants and bars business.

He arrives at The Clough at a time when the owners are launching a major campaign to restore the popular wedding venue to a position of pre-eminence.

Mr Tupman, from Uppermill, who took over the hotel and restaurant in 2007, said: “The site is the oldest established restaurant in the borough of Oldham.

“We are extremely busy with weddings and functions but we want people to think about us when they are planning an evening out.”

Mr Harwood was “delighted” to be approached for the job and is keen to develop the owner’s ideas.

He has plans to introduce a herb garden, vegetable plot and chickens to the huge green field site and would also like — eventually — to have pigs in the fields which surround the hotel.

He said: “I would like to make The Clough a place where people know they can enjoy local products and to add a sense of theatre around the eating out experience.”

Mr Harwood, who has his own allotment at Stanedge where he keeps two chickens — Charlotte and Joe Hall — has big plans for The Clough, where the 25 bedrooms have undergone a makeover.


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