Second lockdown update

Sadly, due to the second lockdown, we are forced to close our doors to our lovely guests once again. 

Just as we were preparing our hotels to welcome back guests, the pandemic has once more changed our plans.

We hope everyone is keeping safe and well, and we look forward to welcoming our guests again once the latest restrictions have been lifted.

Preparing to re-open!

As lockdown draws to a close, the HotelsOfScarborough team are raring to throw wide open the doors of our hotels and welcome back our lovely guests. 

Scarborough remains as beautiful as ever and we are looking forward to once again meeting guests, old and new, and introducing them to the wonders of Scarborough and the North Yorkshire coast.

We hope everyone has kept safe and well during lockdown.

Stuart Walker, 1960-2020

An unfailingly good-natured and hospitable host at The Maynard

Many of you will have learned of the death on 3rd February 2020 of Stuart Walker. If reading this is your first notice, we wanted to mark our own sadness at his passing away.

We attended the funeral in Pontefract and saw Angelia at what was a heavily attended service made all the more poignant by, at the close, a chorus of revving motorbikes recording their own tribute to a very enthusiastic and much missed biking friend.

For sometime Stu had quietly dealt with chronic illness. Given that we took over The Maynard in February 2019, it was a comfort to know that Ange and Stu had a year together, admittedly a short time but one that they could share together unencumbered with the demands of Scarborough holiday life.

As, in these extraordinary days of pandemic, we write a few words about our friend, it struck us both as highly appropriate last night that millions of people turned out to applaud the NHS. Stu’s long years of selfless and committed service as a paramedic epitomise all that is best in those who choose public service. Equally all of those who were his and Ange’s guests at The Maynard could attest to his great qualities as a host and good man.

He is much missed.

CMM and AW

Rowntree once again

No 17 West Street is now Rowntree Lodge

As you can see from the sign today we have become Rowntree Lodge.

On 14th November 1876 Messrs J S Rowntree and J Cadbury took out a joint mortgage to purchase No 17 West Street as a shared holiday house in Scarborough.

As Joseph Rowntree is widely regarded as the father of marketing, it seemed only right to rename the hotel after its original owner.

Ghouls at The Redcliffe

Ghost hunters were on the prowl this weekend

The lights were burning late into the night on Friday night, 7 February, as The Redcliffe Hotel played host to a team of six ghost hunters introduced by Scarborough aficionado Jason Lee, and very possibly to a selection of ghostly presences.

The team had access to the full hotel for the weekend, as The Redcliffe had only just opened having been temporarily closed while rooms were redecorated before the coming season. The works had not disturbed what was forecast to be a rich site.

If you have stayed with us before in Rooms 6 or 9, you were possibly not alone. Both betrayed evidence of activity caught by the Kinect scanners used to identify apparitions. Indeed one seemed to be suspended some distance above the floor, which might raise concerns as to the reason or fate of some past individual.

The Dark Realms Facebook page has some video footage of the weekend. While more can be learned of the equipment at Polygon.

We look forward to seeing, hearing, and experiencing more from Claire, Jess, Justin, Kerrie, Lewis, and Suzie-Lei in time to come … but maybe not too much from their discoveries.

12th May 1941 The Maynard at War

Requisitioned by the RAF after The Weston Hotel was bombed

Men of No 10 Initial Training Wing RAF, Scarborough

In the early morning of 10th May 1941 six bombs landed in Esplanade Gardens, two struck The Weston and The Waldorf hotels. The Weston suffered considerable structural damage with six casualties, one of whom, AC2 WH Stoate died. It had been home to No 4 Squadron of the RAF’s No 11 Initial Training Wing. The men were temporarily moved to The Grand where No 10 ITW were based (the image is of young men of No 10 ITW RAF, many just teenagers or in their early twenties including Leslie Hadder, whose nephew found this photograph, of a later squad)
Two days later a RAF officer from York set out to find fresh accommodation, this is the entry from the Operations Record Book,

12.5.41 to 14.5.41  In order to find accommodation in place of the Weston Hotel, No’s 15 & 16 Esplanade Gardens were inspected by S/Ldr Raymond Barker and Mr Frampton of Air Ministry Works Directorate, York, and application was made to Headquarters Flying Training Command for urgent requisition.

No 15 was The Derwent Hotel and 16 is The Maynard. Very possible the hidden doors mentioned in The Derwent post (19 Dec 2019) linking The Derwent and The Maynard were put in at this date.

Forgotten workmen uncovered at The Redcliffe

Current builders unearth evidence of past craftsmen

Over the last few weeks we have been able to do initial works at The Redcliffe redecorating bedrooms and updating bathrooms, a revamp of the Reception, Bar, and Dining Room, together with reincorporating rooms at the top of building, which give a wonderful view to the North and the Moors.

         

It is not surprising that like archaeologists stripping layers of wallpaper has shown old patterns and colour schemes. And in several cases we have found places where in the 1890s, 1910s, and 1930s decorators have signed their names as a mark of what? Their handiwork? For others to find as a written time capsule? Well some hundred years or so later they are coming to light.

But not just signatures, several drawings have been found. And our favourite cartoon is reproduced here - as you can see it is a mustachioed man caught in profile. In this case he is on the edge of a fireplace looking to the wall, and today he might be in his 130th year?