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?

The Derwent - Scale and grandeur of Scarborough

Drawing room and hidden doors show themselves

During the recent works on The Derwent we have removed much of the twentieth century alterations to the original building and in so doing have unearthed some fresh insights.

The scale of some of the rooms, once dividing walls have come down, reveals how large many of the original rooms in Scarborough’s townhouses really were. A significant number of Scarborough houses from the 1800s and Edwardian period have remarkable plasterwork in cornices, rails, and skirting boards, but these have frequently either been covered up by building work, lost, or disrupted by room divisions.

The Derwent, built in the 1850s as part of the exclusive Esplanade Gardens development, was an ornate building facing the private gardens, access to which meant negotiating with the Garden’s own private police force - it was in every sense a Victorian gated community. One in which the leases specifically refer to restraining your servants from picking flowers in the private gardens.

Much to our surprise our builders have found hidden doors on three floors, giving access to both adjacent buildings 14 and 16 Esplanade Gardens.

Maybe these were put in when the houses changed from being private houses and were for a time a three-bay hotel. It is hard to say, but we have all learned to respect the quality and sturdiness of the work done by the Victorian builders.