JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis Inklings pub to become hotel

A pub made famous as a meeting place for fantasy authors CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien is to be made into a hotel.

The Eagle and Child in St Giles', Oxford, has a plaque inside commemorating the writers' get-togethers.

Known as The Inklings, they would regularly meet up with other academics at the Grade II listed pub.

The application was approved by Oxford City Council's west area planning committee on Tuesday.

The changes, planned by the pub's current landlord, include demolishing part of the ground floor and first floor rear extensions, and converting the cafe next door into a hotel reception and rooms.

The upper floors will also be repurposed for accommodation, but the downstairs pub area will remain.

The application had been called in by five councillors because of "concerns about the impact on the historic buildings and streetscape in St Giles, and the potential impact on trees in the adjoining street at Wellington Place".

The Eagle and Child has been a public house since 1650 and was used as a playhouse for Royalist soldiers during the English Civil War.

It takes its name from the crest of the Earls of Derby, though The Inklings dubbed it "The Bird and Baby".