The stately home where Lord Byron once married has been restored and redeveloped into an award winning luxury hotel and spa by local entrepreneur Tom Maxfield and his wife Jocelyn.
here is an air of doomed romance to Seaham Hall. Where its owners' other hotel - The Samling - is situated in picture-postcard prettiness of the Lake District, the beauty of Seaham Hall's surroundings is of an altogether more rugged nature.
The difference between the two properties is perhaps best captured in terms of the two Romantic poets with which they are associated, the Samling being in the heart of Wordsworth-country, whereas Seaham Hall was where Lord Byron's short-lived marriage to Annabella Millbanke took place.
Nowadays, there is little romance to Seaham itself. The railway lines that once carried coal from the town's three mining collieries to the docks now go literally nowhere, the tracks coming to a halt outside a job centre which is, tellingly, its largest building. The phrase 'dead-end town' never seemed so apt. It seems the community is still recovering from the devastation caused by the pit closures of the 1980s.
It was not always so. Since the end of the Ice Age, generations of visitors have found good reason to settle here, whether tempted by its once-rich seam of natural resources, or its militarily advantageous location overlooking the North Sea. In the 7th century AD, the first Christian settlers founded St Mary the Virgin Church on a plot of land set safely back from the eroded coastline and it was here in 'Old Seaham', some thousand years later, that the area's crowning glory was created.
In the late 18th century Ralph and Judith Milbanke built a vast stately home which would later become famous as the place where their daughter, Annabella, married Lord Byron in 1815. The marriage was an unhappy one, lasting little less than Fate had been kinder to Seaham, which by the early 19th century had become a thriving mining town, mostly owned by the Londonderry family. In 1821, the third Marquis of Londonderry, a leading Tory aristocrat, bought Seaham Hall as a base from which he could oversee the construction of a harbour for the shipping of coal. Over the next century the Londonderrys expanded the Hall significantly, adding a large northern wing.
Throughout the First World War, the hall was used as a military hospital, until being handed back to the Londonderry family in 1919. Their reign at Seaham Hall came to an end in 1922 and five years later they gifted the premises to the County Council. £20,000 was spent converting the Hall into a tuberculosis sanatorium with 80 beds for women and children. Over the following decades, the hospital developed into a pioneering cardiac treatment centre but despite local protests the hospital was closed in 1978 and was sold for use as a hotel.
This venture proved unsuccessful and in 1988 the Hall was converted into a nursing home which eventually went into liquidation in 1995.
It wasn't until 2002 that the hall finally re-opened in its current guise, restored to its former glory and redeveloped as a world-class luxury hotel and spa.
Tom Maxfield (a co-founder of the Sage accountancy software empire) had spotted the building on a flying lesson across his native North East England. Having made his millions with the flotation of Sage, he decided he wanted to buy this crumbling pile, and put something back into the local community.
The resulting hotel is as impressive as any English country house hotel we have ever come across in these pages.
The interior design is the work of Ward Robinson's Jill Holst, working alongside Tom's wife Jocelyn Maxfield. It is a no-expense-spared testament to their good taste, most notably in the hotel's collection of contemporary art.
The works of painters Dale Atkinson, ¯rnulf Opdahl and Paul Gallagher adorn on the walls, whilst sculptural works by Nicolaus Widerberg, Andrew Burton and William Pye also feature.
Stained glass artist Bridget Jones has created a complete ceiling based on Byron's poetry in the lobby atrium.
Against the backdrop of the hall's original structure, the designers have introduced modern furnishings and fittings, many of them in a comforting, contemporary English style that will be familiar to fans of Kit Kemp's designs for the Firmdale group. But this is no copyist design. Alongside the luxurious fabrics, marble fireplaces, oversized beds and thick wool carpets, there is also an Asian influence in the artefacts displayed in the public areas.
This Eastern tone becomes most apparent as guests enter the Serenity Spa, accessed via a long subterrenean tunnel beneath the hotel. Just as the Londonderrys added a huge wing, the Maxfields have made their own addition, in the guise of a contemporary annexe which now houses the Serenity Spa. It recently beat off stiff competition from Dubai and Germany to be voted best Spa in the World in the prestigious Gala Awards. According to brand development manager Penny Dumbleton, the spa attracts visitors from across the North East has been a major factor in the regeneration of the area. There is talk of plans to roll out the Serenity concept elsewhere.
General Manager Matthew Bell says plans are also afoot to expand Seaham Hall once again. Architects are currently looking at converting the old nursing home to extra bedrooms, as well as reorganising the restaurant, bar and reception areas.
To try to put these changes into some architectural perspective, I wander down to the seafront. It is there that I find a plaque which puts the story of Seaham Hall into a different kind of perspective. It explains that: "There is no doubt that Seaham is a place well used to change - through natural forces or otherwise." Thanks to the faith Tom Maxfield has shown in the town, I get the feeling any changes in Seaham's future, natural or otherwise, will be for the better.
