What was behind the bricked up archway at the North Euston Hotel?

They’d walked past the bricked up, glossed over doorway thousands of times and never really took much notice of it.
North Euston Hotel general manager Stephen Dale with one of the old bottles found in the old cellar roomNorth Euston Hotel general manager Stephen Dale with one of the old bottles found in the old cellar room
North Euston Hotel general manager Stephen Dale with one of the old bottles found in the old cellar room

But when staff at the North Euston Hotel began a lockdown tidy up in the cellar of the Victorian building in Fleetwood, they took a closer look.

Brick by brick, they pulled the arched wall apart to discover what they believe to be an old wine cellar.

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Inside the dusty room they uncovered racks and shelving as well as an old wine list, with prices still in the old shilling and pence - and an empty case of Blue Nun wine.

They think they date back half a century to the late 1960’s. More picturesHotel general manager Stephen Dale explained: “It was a bricked up archway which we have walked past for many years but never really noticed it.

“We are just tidying up ready for whenever we can open again and we decided to have a closer look.

“We took out a brick at a time to find the room.

“The actual shelves still have the original bin numbers, used to locate each type of wine.”

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Measuring around ten feet by 12, it’s an ideal wine storage area, cool in the maze of cellar rooms underneath the hotel.

It isn’t the first time an old bricked up room has been found though.

Around seven years ago, another cellar room was stumbled upon by chance when contractors smashed old brickwork to find out where pipes were running to.

It was a large room, dusty, dark and strewn with rubble and it felt like stepping back in time a hundred years.

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It had a bricked archway, below street level, and in front of that, a timber frame and an old panelled door which looked like it could have been added at a later date.

Staff at the hotel decided to try and find out more about the history of the hotel with some help from Fleetwood Rotary Club.

They discovered that the space to the side of the room, which had wood panelling, hinted that it could have been a stable.

That fitted in with historical information that during the Boer War between 1899 and 1901, the hotel was used as a school of musketry.

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Iron doors were still intact as well, numbered and were used as an armoury.

It was also understood that officers lived upstairs during the war and the men in their charge lived and slept below stairs in the cellars along with their horses.

One story connected with the cellar room told of a young fusilier from Enniskillen who had become so desperately depressed and homesick, he took his own life.

The story goes that the ghost of the young man still walks the cellars today.

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Further along the labryinth of cellars, underneath the hotel’s ballroom, are Turkish-style baths.

Tunnels are also rumoured to carve their way from the hotel to the Mount, possibly as an alternative route out of the hotel for the soldiers.

The North Euston Hotel is one of Fleetwood’s most iconic buildings.

With its curved structure overlooking Morecambe Bay, the hotel was named as such because of its proximity to the port’s old rail link to Euston Station in London.

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Part of the huge cellar was more recently renovated to house a state-of-the art gym facility, a far contrast to it’s past uses.

The most recent room discovery however, will serve the hotel well as a much needed store room.

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