Lord Crewe Arms

Lord Crewe Arms

The approach is worth knowing about. A long road north through the North Pennines, past the Derwent Reservoir, the moorland opening up on both sides until the honey-stone village of Blanchland appears in the valley below, entirely unchanged since the 18th century when Lord Crewe rebuilt it and gave it to his trustees, who still own the whole village today. The Lord Crewe Arms is located at the heart of it, a building that began as an abbot's lodge in the 12th century and was restored in 2014 by the Calcot Collection into something genuinely comfortable without disturbing its eight hundred years of accumulated atmosphere. Twenty-six bedrooms dressed in North Pennine tweeds and warm tones, some with roll-top baths and roaring fires, OS maps and a compass provided as standard. The vaulted Crypt Bar below the main building is the heart of the place on a winter evening, the Lord Crewe Ale on tap and the fire doing what fires do in Northumberland in November. The Bishop's Dining Room serves a daily-changing menu built around strict seasonality, head chef Paul Johnson having worked with Nathan Outlaw before the pull of the North East brought him home. The hotel has its own private stretch of the River Derwent for trout fishing from March to September. Hadrian's Wall is accessible. The Northumberland coast is within reach. Dogs are welcome with biscuits, beds, and walking recommendations provided. W.H. Auden, who grew up nearby, said no spot brought him sweeter memories. The Lord Crewe Arms mostly manages to live up to it. Short version: A 12th-century abbot's lodge in the unchanged honey-stone village of Blanchland on the North Pennines, with 26 individually dressed rooms, a medieval vaulted Crypt Bar, a daily-changing seasonal restaurant, private trout fishing on the Derwent, and the kind of atmosphere that only eight hundred years of continuous occupation can produce.