Luxury wedding venue is sold

MATFEN HALL SALE ENDS 260-YEAR CONNECTION FOR FAMILY

Business Reporter

LUXURY Northumberland hotel and wedding venue Matfen Hall has been sold to new owners after being part of the Blackett family for more than 260 years.

The impressive property has been bought for an undisclosed sum by fellow Northumberland hospitality firm Walwick Estate Group, which says it now plans to invest in the venue.

As well as Matfen Hall, the Walwick Estate Group owns Walwick Hall, a country estate with boutique hotel and spa near Hexham, as well as the Chesters Stables luxury suites and properties in the Caribbean.

The deal marks the end of a historic connection with the Blackett family, who have owned the building since it was built in the 1830s.

And while it has welcomed thousands of guests over the last 21 years, outgoing owners Sir Hugh Blackett and his wife Lady Anna never dreamed of being in the hotel business when they initially took it on.

The hall has been the seat of the Blackett baronets since 1757, and was completely rebuilt between 1832 and

1836.

Former owner Sir Hugh, the greatgreat-great grandson of the man who built the Hall in 1830, inherited Matfen Hall and the rest of the Blackett family estate in 1968 at the age of 14, when he was still a schoolboy in Dorset.

His grandfather – the last Blackett to actually live in the Hall – and his uncle had died within a few years of each other, leaving the family with two sets of large death duties to pay, resulting in the sale of the contents of the hall and other properties to pay the taxman.

To stop the estate dwindling even further away, Sir Hugh’s father and his other uncle agreed to pass on their entitlement to the then teenager. The Hall, just off the old Military Road between Corbridge and Newcastle, initially became a Cheshire Home for the disa

David Harrison, of True Potential