I Ain't Afraid of No Ghosts (Dorothy Forster and The Lord Crewe Arms

Thanks to a very dear friend I had a wonderful stay at the Lord Crewe Arms Hotel in Blanchland last night. The hotel was originally built as the abbot’s lodge guest house and kitchens of Blanchland Abbey.

This was the first of my ’special’ birthday celebrations(More to follow) We had a great start to our stay when the owner of the hotel brought complimentary tea and two fabulous pieces of chocolate cake up to our room – he’d even iced ‘happy birthday’ in chocolate onto the plate.

The hotel is said to be haunted by the ghost of Dorothy Forster, wife of the first Lord Crewe and there were people at the hotel last night, with little meters and other gadgets trying to track down poor Dorothy while my friend and I sat in the bar chasing different kinds of spirits!

The food was delicious, though we did panic a bit when we saw the snow start to fall again around ten in the evening – we had visions (not really!) of being trapped for days up on the fells with only sheep and ghostbusters for company. Even the parked cars joined in by spasmodically letting rip with their alarms. Quite a wild and weird night to say the least.