Saturday, 30 June 2018

“Tonight we sleep on silken sheets”


I’m getting quite a taste for grand old station hotels, most recently the Royal at Newcastle. It was opened in 1850 by Queen Victoria, though she probably gave the indoor heated swimming pool a miss for one reason or another.

The Grade Two listed building, originally constructed for the North Eastern Railway, is now part of the Cairn Collection. Jane Russell, Richard Burton, Laurel & Hardy and Muhammad Ali have all stayed there over the years. A more pressing concern was the stags and hens potential, and would they be looking for something a little less stately?

The plan worked and I even got to watch Eng-er-land v Panama on the telly in the bar in almost splendid isolation. I’m quite happy to generate my own enthusiasm, thank you. The hordes of beer-swilling, painted faces were all whooping it up down the road.

This is just my sort of Grand Hotel.

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