The story behind the Arlington House Hotel in Wooler

Ben Ross, 33, and his mum Jane opened the Arlington House Hotel, a seven-bedroom self check-in style hotel in what was previously the Cheviot View B&B above the Glendale Pharmacy.

Originally from Guildford, Ben Ross, left his job as a contract manager to pursue his plans of starting a hotel business.

He had moved to the North East to be closer to his partner, and was looking in multiple places for potential spots to start a project, but after an agent put Wooler on Ben’s radar, his search for a hotel project came to an end.

With help from his mum, who coined the nickname ‘Jane of all trades’, renovations of the building began in January 2023.

"I had various alerts set up around the country in tourist hotspots. Then that building came up and it was perfect,” Ben said. "Everyone's been really supportive. Even living there everyone's really friendly. It's been a change from where I've been.”

Jane played a big role in the whole process and made the leap from only designing her personal space to designing a whole hotel.

"She's been a big influence on me and my passion for property so yeah, it's all come from her,” Ben said.

On the Arlington House Hotel website Jane wrote: “All my life, I have bought houses that needed fixing up. There was never enough money in the pot to pay other people to do the work, so I learned to do a lot of practical tasks myself, from tiling to making curtains, landscaping and basic carpentry, hence the nickname ‘Jane of All Trades’.”

The name of the hotel comes from Ben’s three-year-old golden doodle Arlo, with ‘Arlington’ being a fancy way of saying his name. Arlo has also played an important role in checking on the progress and giving his very valued opinion.

Despite Ben’s love for dogs, the hotel will not be allowing guests to bring them on their stay. Ben explained on the hotel’s website: “Imagine seven dogs all running around the hotel - carnage!”

The hotel follows on from a previous challenge Ben worked to complete in 2020 when he attended the McGuire Programme to overcome his stammer.

Talking about it, Ben said: “I had to put quite a bit of work in after that because it was a four day intensive course but then there was probably another six to 12 months of implementing the good habits and sort of overcoming feared situations.”

Before any construction work could even begin, the duo had to make sure the designs were complete for the full building, including bathrooms, kitchens, paint, LVT flooring, and carpets. It was a task that required a lot of fine tuning, as they needed to be sure it could all work together without being able to see it until it was installed.

Luckily for Ben, the business community is a supportive one and experienced people in the field helped to guide him on the right path.

“Once you embed yourself in that world it really opens up, there's networking events, there's WhatsApp groups, there's communities and everyone is keen to help each other,” Ben added.

You can book a stay at https://hostandstay.co.uk/stay/properties/?city=&dates=&sleeps=&search=Arlington&sort=created_at-desc.