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UK: Plans for a £1.5 million visitor complex at Hadrian’s Wall include a boutique hotel.
Other features will include a heritage centre, bistro and microbrewery.
Businessmen David Gaddes and Ian Hunter are hoping to convert a derelict farm site in Bowness-on-Solway, capitalising on “the growing interest from visitors and locals in the World Heritage Site”.
Gaddes, who has lived in the village for 19 years, said he and Hunter believe they have discovered a gap in the market.
“There isn’t really anything there. People start walking or cycling the wall there or finish it there. But they haven’t then got anything to go to. There are thousands of walkers going along there every year. We thought we have to put something there along there for them. The heritage centre will be local history predominantly, everybody has done Vindolanda and Birdoswald etc, they’ve seen the Hadrian’s Wall stuff before. So we also want to show off local history, the old railway, old canals, viaduct and haaf netters fishermen, make it a bit different.”
If successful the project could create around 12 new jobs.
The project has received the backing of groups such as the Solway AONB, Visit England and Cumbria Tourism.
The businessmen are hoping to convert the old listed farmhouse into a five-bedroom boutique hotel, targeting the higher end of the market, and a 16th century cottage on the site will be converted for letting and will be called the Smugglers’ Cottage.
Other old buildings will be turned into holiday lets and some of the open space will be filled with four family shepherd’s huts.
“We hope it will be a quiet site, somewhere where people can come and chill out and get away from it all. The shepherds huts are really fantastic,” Gaddes continued. “Predominantly it will be our money going into this but it will be a massive boost for tourism in Cumbria and we hope to be able to tap into some funding.”
The pair hope a spa area and the shepherd’s huts can be open by April while the visitor centre, shop, art workshop, bistro and four of the letting buildings can be ready by Christmas.
A planning application for the scheme has been submitted with Allerdale Council.
