In brief

Morland, the Abingdon-based regional brewer, has added a 12th property to its Artist's Fayre pub-restaurant chain.

It is understood the group paid close to the £800,000 being asked by the Business Sales Group for Lincolns, a US theme bar-restaurant set in a Grade II-listed Jacobean mansion on the edge of Bedford town centre.

Artist's Fayre, which is similar in style to Whitbread's Brewers Fayre chain, operates from the south coast to Manchester, having been set up four years ago.

The purchase of Lincolns, which will be converted at a cost of more than £200,000, is part of a five-year development plan by Morland. The brewer is currently looking at six other properties.

Business is on the increase in the South-east, according to a survey of 103 hotels and guesthouses by the South East England Tourist Board.

Nearly a third have seen a 10% rise in bookings for 1995,two-thirds have had smaller increases in booking levels, while 55% saw profits rise last year.

Rising occupancy levels over the past two years have been accompanied by a reduction in discounts.

A verdict of accidental death was recorded on a young chef at London's Tower Thistle Hotel who fell to his death from a sixth-storey window last August.

The court heard how David McNeill, who lived at the hotel, had been hanging out of the window during a drunken lark. He drowned after slipping and falling into the canal below.