The Midland Hotel, Morecambe

.../> This review is about the rise, fall and rise again of the incredible Midland Hotel in Morecambe.
I do not apologise at all for the long history of this hotel because I feel it has an important part to play.

The story of this hotel - which once featured in a Poirot TV programme is worthy of a programme in its own right and goes back a long way.

When the present art deco style Midland Hotel opened in 1933 ...
...the Midland, which had occupied the site since 1848.This first hotel was a two-storey building of grey stone with green shuttered windows and contained forty bedrooms.

The London, Midland and Scottish Railway Company owned the Midland Hotel and in the late 1920's they decided to replace the building with a more modern structure. In January 1932 it approved plans for a new hotel to be built on the seafront at a cost of just under £72, ... more

Advantages: A chance to relive ARt Deco life in modern surroundings
Disadvantages: Expensive
This review is about the rise, fall and rise again of the incredible Midland Hotel in Morecambe.
I do not apologise at all for the long history of this hotel because I feel it has an important part to play.

The story of this hotel - which once featured in a Poirot TV programme is worthy of a programme in its own right and goes back a long way.

When the present art deco style Midland Hotel opened in 1933 it took the place of an earlier hotel, also called the Midland, which had occupied the site since 1848.This first hotel was a two-storey building of grey stone with green shuttered windows and contained forty bedrooms.

The London, Midland and Scottish Railway Company owned the Midland Hotel and in the late 1920's they decided to replace the building with a more modern structure. In January 1932 it approved plans for a new hotel to be built on the seafront at a cost of just under £72, 000.

Architect Oliver Hill was asked to provide the railway company with "a building of international quality in the modern style".

Oliver Hill was trained in the 'Arts and Crafts' tradition and had only recently been converted to 'modernism' so when he was told that "you have here a unique opportunity of building the first really modern hotel in the country." he realised that the new hotel would give him a chance to put into practice his idea of bringing together architecture and interior decoration.

Hill believed that the exterior design should be linked to the interior décor and so took complete control of the hotel's colour scheme, works of art, decoration and furnishings - even down to the colour of the hand towels and the shape of the door handles.
The finished design was a 3-storey, curved building which followed the line of the new promenade, the convex side faced towards Morecambe Bay ensuring that all rooms had good views.

The concave side of the building faced the railway station and was divided by a tower containing the hotel entrance and spiral staircase.

Sculptor and engraver Eric Gill carved the two famous seahorses outside of the building. Inside the building he carved a circular medallion in the ceiling overlooking the staircase. It shows a sea god being attended by mermaids and is edged with the words "And hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn".
Gill also designed an incised relief map of the Lake District and the Lancashire coast for a wall of the South Room.

The inside of the rounded cafe at the north end of the hotel was painted by another well-known artist Eric Ravilious. As the café was originally intended for the use of casual visitors to the beach its walls were painted with seaside themes by day and night. Unfortunately, due to insufficient preperation the wall needed to be painted over completely two years later.
In 1989 the mural was reconstructed for the episode of the TV detective series "Agatha Christie's Poirot" which was partly set in the hotel.

The new Midland Hotel opened on Wednesday 12th July 1933. Immediately after its opening the Midland Hotel quickly became the place to stay for the wealthy middle classes from across the north of England. Yorkshire mill-owners and businessmen took whole suites for the summer, travelling by train from the station opposite to Leeds and Bradford in the morning and to Morecambe in the evening.

Unfortunatly this heyday of the Midland was short - a little over six years - ending when war was declared in September 1939.

During the war the glamourous hotel that had housed the rich and famous like Coco Chanel, Wallace Simpson and Lawrence Olivier for a short while became a military hospital.

The dining room became a large ward with some forty beds, and the circular café became a physiotherapy centre.
Upstairs, two of the suites were turned into operating theatres and the bedrooms used for individual patients. There were also X-ray facilities, a dental surgery and a dispensary. Additional beds were provided in Nissen huts erected in the hotel grounds.

Towards the end of the war the hospital was kept open a little longer than intended because an airman had cancer and couldn't be moved. He eventually died there.

After the war the hotel never really regained it's pre-war splendour.
The Railway were given the hotel back in February 1946 and it was found to be in a very bad state of repair. The company considered selling the hotel, they approached the local council who declined and eventually they decided to renovate the building and the Midland re-opened to the public in July 1948.

Following the nationalisation of the railways the Midland was put up for sale and on 25th July 1952, nineteen years after it first opened, the Midland Hotel passed out of railway hands - as it was purchased by Lewis Hodgson of Bolton Abbey for £50,000.
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The Midland did well during 1950s but in 1960 it was sold to Scottish Brewers (later Scottish and Newcastle Breweries). It was still a high class hotel that did well but it began to feel the effect of changing holiday patterns and by the early 1970s it was losing out to the pull of foreign holidays to its former customers.

In 1976 the Midland was sold once more to Hutchinson Leisure Group and the same year the building's architectural importance was recognised when it was listed grade 2*. The new owners added a glass sun-lounge in 1979 that ran the length of the seaward side of the hotel but business did not improve and by the time the Midland was bought by Family Hotels in 1989 it had become very run down.

It was very sad to see the demise of this wonderful building, what once had been the highlight of the promenade was now an eyesore, flaking paint and rusty window frames were clear to see.

In June 2001 the decaying building was purchased by Kalber Leisure who planned to spend £9.6 million on restoring the Midland to its former 1930's glory, but a year later the hotel was back on the market again.

In January 2003 the Midland Hotel was purchased by Urban Splash who wanted to rsstore the hotel, but it took two years to prepare the plans and sort out the finance. By now the hotel was looking really sad, it was boarded up with all windows broken. In December 2004 Urban Splash announced that the refurbishment of the Midland could begin and work started in Spring 2005.

Restoration took over three years to complete and the Midland Hotel finally re-opened for business in June 2008.
The ground floor of the hotel has been restored as closely as possible to the original but the 44 bedrooms have been brought up to modern standards.

The old sun lounge was demolished and replaced by a lighter, glazed one and extra accommodation, in the form of six luxury suites, has been added on the roof .
The final piece in the hotel's history is that English Lakes Hotels in partnership with Urban Splash took over the management of the Midland Hotel on 8th April 2009.

And what a gem this hotel is, I just hope that its revival will be echoed with the rest of the town of Morecambe.

The outside is once more the sparkling art deco wonder from the 1930's (although personally I feel that the seahorses should have been gilded) . Inside there is some lovely original Art Deco artwork along side more modern pieces.
The Eric Gill features and the original staircase are a joy to see - wonderful!!

The public rooms are very simple but in a striking art deco way. There's lots of natural light and great views out to sea. The views over Morecambe Bay are wonderful and the sunsets there are legendry.

The rooms are more modern than you might expect to see in a recently renovated Art Deco Hotel but they are very well designed, extrememly comfortable, very well equiped and make imaginative use of the space available- the bed's are huge and comfy, the bed linen and towels are of really high class quality, the little extras like 'Molton Brown' toiletries, dressing gown, slippers, tea, coffee, beer, water hot chocolate etc. are lovely.

The food in the restaurant is fantastic ( expensive but fantastic!!) They offer a delicious variety of breakfasts, wonderful afternoon teas in the Rotunda terrace café, great "Lancashire Tapas" and delicious evening meals - with lots of locally sourced produce.

PRICE

The Midland Hotel is not a budget hotel!!

You will pay from around £125 per night for a double room bed and breakfast and from around £260 for a suite.
Expensive, yes, but for a special treat, to spend the night in a hotel of this standard - I think it is worth it!!

CONTACT DETAILS
The Midland Hotel
Marine Rd West
Morecambe
LA4 4BU
Tel:01524 424000
email: mhreception@elhmail.co.uk
 

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