From a country pub in the UK to a B&B on Granada's coast

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Fede and Nigel met in Bristol but have bought a property on the Costa Tropical which they are about to open as a B&B

Jennie Rhodes

Polopos-La Mamola.

Friday, 16 January 2026, 12:48

If anyone had asked Nigel Jiménez Pérez Songhurst (he took his husband's surnames when the couple married in November 2022) two or three years ago if he could see himself leaving the south west of England and buying a house in Andalucía, he would have said "no way".

Likewise, his husband Federico (Fede), who moved from his native Malaga to the UK in search of work in 2013 when Spain was slowly recovering from the financial crisis, didn't think of returning to his native country so soon.

Nigel, 48, and Fede, 41, met in Bristol after Fede moved there in 2014. Nigel was running a country pub just outside Bath and when it reopened after the initial lockdown, Fede started working there too. But following the pandemic and then when Nigel lost his dad in January 2024, the couple said that they "started thinking about changing our paths".

Road trip

Nigel and Fede set off in their camper van for what was going to be a three-month trip around Europe, but a call from Fede's family, who live between Malaga and Polopos-La Mamola on Granada province's Costa Tropical, to help out with the family estate after his parents died, set them on a very different course.

They ended up heading directly to the south of Spain; Fede's family is from Polopos where his granddad was the local doctor and has a street named after him: Calle Doctor Jiménez Acosta. "Every school and public holiday we would come here and I know all the elderly people who are still here. I feel at home," Fede says.

Nigel had never been to this part of Spain but soon fell in love with the way of life here and the couple started looking for properties in the village. At the same time, with a background in the hospitality industry, they came up with the idea of running their own B&B.

After some searching, a house came up which had been owned by an English lady who had died and left it to her son. Fede and Nigel explain that the son wasn't interested in either living there or investing in the property and it had been empty for some years.

The story behind the name of the bed breakfast

The story behind the name Casa Mariscal is deeply rooted within Fede’s family and Polopos-La Mamola.

In fact it’s a surname belonging to Fede’s mother’s side of the family and a number of buildings and streets in Polopos feature it.

This is because, Fede explains, that the surname (often appearing as Sánchez Mariscal) belonged to two of his ancestors: two doctors who bore the surnames and who helped locals suffering from the eye condition trachoma.

Fede told SUR in English that Doctor Tomás Sánchez Mariscal was his mother’s cousin and Doctor Jose Mariscal Alonso was her grandfather, so Fede’s great grandfather. He was also doctor in the village and was specialised in curing eye conditions as well.

As well as street names in Polopos-La Mamola and Granada city, the local primary school, Colegio Público Sánchez Mariscal, is also named after the doctors.

The couple were able to negotiate a good price. They were given the keys almost exactly a year ago, on 14 January 2025 and started to renovate Casa Mariscal, which is the name they have given to the property.

At around the same time that they bought the house, Fede and Nigel went on holiday with a friend who knew someone who worked as a television editor and had contacts with the Channel 4 programme A New Life in the Sun, which follows Brits as they embark on business ventures in Europe. "Within an hour they contacted us and the ball started rolling," Nigel explains.

The cameraman, Jamie, who has now become a good friend, arrived and the filming began soon after they got the keys to the house. They explain that filming took place regularly until October last year and the programme is currently being aired in the UK.

When Nigel and Fede embarked on what should have been the three-month road trip, they say they couldn't have dreamed that they would end up staying here, buying a property and ending up on TV. "You couldn't write it," laughs Nigel.

The couple admit that "it's been a bit of a roller coaster", especially with Nigel having to return to the UK on several occasions last year to help both his mum and friends who have been seriously ill.

A helping hand

In fact he had to leave Fede to cater for a party of 12 over Christmas when his mum was taken to hospital. Thankfully he says she's doing much better now and he has been able to return to Spain.

Fede recognises the advantages of moving back to a village where he has family and friends and says that everyone has rallied around to help him while Nigel's been away.

Fede also works for the town hall, which means that work to the house has had to fit around those other challenges. However, they have had the help of a local builder, Brian, who is originally from Yorkshire and to whom Nigel and Fede say they are "extremely grateful".

There have been some challenges along the way but Nigel and Fede are hopeful that they will be able to open the B&B in April. They have already got bookings from friends, family and people who have found them having watched the TV programme. Although official bookings can't be taken yet, just through phone calls and messages they say that they are going to be busy up until the end of October.

Fede is delighted that Spanish people who left Polopos some time ago, but are keen to take their family to show them where they grew up, have heard about them and are also making bookings.

Fede and Nigel are also very involved with the local community and are already helping out with events in the village and when they're not working, the couple love nothing more than being able to go down to the beach for an evening swim: "That's not something we could do in the UK," Nigel points out.

His resolution for this year is to sign up for Spanish classes and Fede, whose English is excellent having lived in the UK for 10 years, says that he is "happy with the decision" to go back to his roots. They are both clearly enjoying their new life in the south of Spain, despite having never dreamed of coming here until a couple of years ago.

The story behind the name Casa Mariscal is deeply rooted within Fede's family and Polopos-La Mamola.

In fact it's a surname belonging to Fede's mother's side of the family and a number of buildings and streets in Polopos feature it.

This is because, Fede explains, that the surname (often appearing as Sánchez Mariscal) belonged to two of his ancestors: two doctors who bore the surnames and who helped locals suffering from the eye condition trachoma.

Fede told SUR in English that Doctor Tomás Sánchez Mariscal was his mother's cousin and Doctor Jose Mariscal Alonso was her grandfather, so Fede's great grandfather. He was also doctor in the village and was specialised in curing eye conditions as well.

As well as street names in Polopos-La Mamola and Granada city, the local primary school, Colegio Público Sánchez Mariscal, is also named after the doctors.