The Scawfell Hotel 1850 - 1997

The late and lamented Scawfell Hotel had been a major focus for the villages various social activities since its opening, particularly - in later years - for those villagers with no connections to Sellafield. It was the first licensed establishment in Seascale providing a public bar as well as a separate saloon bar for the residents. There is no record of Nebb House having a license despite the fact that one of its occupiers, Charles Cannon, was recorded as an Ale House Keeper in 1851. The Hotel provided the first meeting and function rooms prior to the building of the Public Hall, Pretoria Pavilion and the Church Halls.

The Hotel was built for John Tyson (1794-1876) a grocer & draper from Gosforth on land obtained from the railway. In July 1852 John Tyson was advertising the position of Innkeeper for the Hotel in the local paper. It is possible that it was open when the Railway arrived in Seascale on 19 July 1849, but it certainly was in use in April 1851, Innkeeper John Gunson, at the time of that years census survey. The official opening was recorded in the local paper. The Cumberland Pacquet reported in June 1851:

“On the evening of Tuesday the 28th.May, Mr.John Gunson of the Scawfell Hotel, had his cellar opening and assembly, and the evening being fine a numerous and respectable company favoured him with their presence, no less than 160 persons partaking of supper and other good things. After supper the ballroom became the scene of attraction for the youth and beauty of the district, who maintained their enjoyment until dawn the next day. Mr.& Mrs. Gunson with their daughters rendered a gathering of unalloyed pleasure to all present.”

The Tyson family must have stood out in the village of Gosforth. Father John, ran a Grocers shop in Gosforth as well as having the vision to build the Scawfell Hotel, whilst his two sons, John who later ran the Hotel and Henry who went into business in Liverpool and the West Indies. He retired to Steelfield Hall in Gosforth. It is possible that the son Richard also entered into business at Liverpool. Local tradition in Gosforth says that Steelfield Hall had been re-named after Henry’s West Indian estate and that he married a coloured woman from the West Indies and brought her to Gosforth. It is also possible that this Tyson family was related to the stone mason Tysons that built the Scawfell and other property in our village.

On the 17 April 1856 the Whitehaven & Furness Junction Railway conveyed the land upon which the Scawfell Hotel already stood to John Tyson of Gosforth, draper. A report on this sale said that: ” the land was superfluous to their needs and not required by them for the permanent purposes of the railway, agreed to the absolute sale to John Tyson of a piece of land of area 3 roods 18 sq.perches for the sum of £25-17-6, where the said John Tyson hath at his own cost erected a dwelling house, which has been licensed as an Inn & victualling house and stable, coach house and other buildings upon the said plot near to the present offices, warehouse and station at Seascale. The hotel is now or late in the occupation of Thomas Massicks.”

The opening of the Hotel along with the amenities that went with it helped to put Seascale on the social map of West Cumberland. Today it is routine for an organisation to hire a motor coach to take its members to a local hostelry to celebrate an important event. In Victorian times this was achieved by hiring a railway train to carry the guests to the Scawfell for their event, with the train standing in a local siding awaiting the end of the festivities. This was often as dawn was breaking and just before the scheduled services were due to start running on the local line. The Victorians certainly knew how to party !

John Tyson left the Hotel to his son Daniel in his will dated 1876 with the provision that be paid £30 each year to the support of his mother Ruth Tyson. The Hotel stayed in this family, with his son and grandson, until 1914 when a family squabble ended in the High Court in London which ordered the sale in May 1916.

This dispute, which followed a similar event in 1903, concerned a claim that the executors of John Tyson (1849-1903) had not ensured that the money (value £1,500) left to Jane Ruth Braithwaite, the sister of John Tyson, in the will of her father Daniel Tyson (1820-1880), had not been paid. So she sued the executors, John Henry Carter of Rottington Hall, in the High Court in London for the money owed.

As a result of the trial, the judge ordered the sale of the Tyson estates and the Scawfell Hotel was put up for sale on the 4 May 1916. The Scawfell Hotel estate was in-debt to the Bank of Whitehaven for £7,134 at this time. At this sale, held by Messrs Mitchell’s of Cockermouth, there were five valuable properties offered in this sale.

1. The Scawfell Hotel received one bid of £1,000 and was withdrawn from the sale.
2. A building plot on Seascale Banks was bid up to £65 and withdrawn.
3. The land called Acrelands was sold to Mr.J.T.Braithwaite for £750. Acreland fields consisted of
21 Acres 11 perches along with a stone barn, byre & implement house.
4. Rose Cottage Gosforth was sold to Mr.M.Mossop of Seascale on behalf of a client
5. The field adjoining Rose Cottage was sold to Mr.P.S.Corlett the agent for Mr.J.Musgrave.

In September 1916 the hotel was bought for £4,250 by the Boys family who originated in Bradford but who came to Seascale via Baildon, Settle and the White Lion Inn at Ambleside. John Henry Hanson Boys and his wife Elizabeth Ann ran the hotel until 1923 when they passed on the management to their son George Clark Boys and his wife Doris May. Prior to this time George C. had been running a similar establishment in Coniston and they, in fact, exchanged properties.

During the World War II the hotel was largely taken over by the operations at ROF Sellafield. Part of the Scawfell Hotel was used as a management centre and as a hostel for its scientific staff.

In 1947 John Henry (Harry) Boys sold the Scawfell to Joshua Tetley the brewery Company, before he emigrated to Rhodesia to live with his daughter. The Boys family continued to live in the house at the back which they had converted out of the shop & warehouse complex. Tetley’s in turn became part of Allied Brewerys. Bernard Gannon brought the Scawfell back into private ownership sometime in the 1960’s.

The hotel went through several stages of expansion in its lifetime. In 1851 the Hotel consisted of the rectangular block, with ten bedrooms, which comprised the front of the Hotel in later years. At an early stage in its development a separate building was added consisting of a stable block etc on the ground floor with a large function room above. By the time of the Sale in 1898 the Hotel had reached the size it was to remain for the rest of its lifetime. There would be many internal changes over the succeeding years in an attempt to keep the facilities up to the standards of the day. But there is little doubt that the environmental impact of the activities of BNFL as well as the changes in lifestyle of the British holiday-maker doomed a Hotel of its size.

The closure of the boys & girls boarding schools must have had a major impact on the takings of the Hotel as the parents of the scholars provided a regular income for the hotel. The demise of these private schools, in the opinion of the then owners, was entirely due to the 1957 reactor fire incident along with the subsequent problems associated with discharges to the sea.

The Scawfell never adapted to the changes in demand made by the numerous business visitors attracted to the area by the massive expansion programmes carried through by B.N.F.L. at Sellafield. This type of Customer demands a high standard of comfort & service for which they were willing to pay a high price. It is unfortunate for the Village that the owners of the hotel were not prepared to make the necessary investment in the 1970’s, for if they had, the Hotel may still be here today. At the end the Hotel had been operated under the control of its debtor banks for many months, after which it was closed for business in November 1995.

Mr.Lingard of Irton Hall, formerly of Manchester, is said to have paid £90,000 for the Hotel early in 1996. The story in the village was that he would knock it down, use the sandstone for extensions to Irton Hall, and replace it with a modern hotel complex including a fitness centre & swimming pool! The reality was that the roof was stripped of its slates, which were then taken to Irton Hall.

The Sale of fixture and fittings took place on the 13th.July 1996 but the interior was virtually already destroyed by running water caused by burst pipes from the heavy frosts of the previous winter.

Demolition started October 1996 and site clearance was not completed until July 1997.

A fire on the night of 31 August 1997, in part of the un-occupied Scawfell outbuildings (the old stables), resulted in their demolition the next day on safety grounds. In 1998 their was a rumour that the person who then owned the land released by the demolition of the hotel had applied for planning permission to build over 20 houses on this site.