Drove past this morning and all the ground floor windows are being boarded up, the car park was full of cars but …… they were all for sale

It will be a car wash very soon no doubt

The end must be nigh…?

I had my last wedding at the Staincliffe and it holds a special place In my heart. But regardless of that its a beautiful historic Hartlepool building that really should not be allowed to die off.

A big old building with probably only the hotel side profitable, there is a shortage of decent hotel accommodation in Hartlepool. Shouldn’t they have considered demolishing the function rooms and the bar at the end , used to called the Chapel Bar which could have freed up land to build apartments,
Plans were resubmitted, now going to be 3 storey buildings with a frontage more in line with the surroundings, waiting for artists impressions

I’ve seen the artists impression, the end product does not match the description accompanying it in my humble opinion.
When it goes, a little bit of the Seaton conservation area will be the worse for it’s passing.

Just been on the website and got a look at the proposed replacements for the Staincliffe. Oh dear……..
I’m not usually lost foe words but ………

to be fair because something we have used to see all our lives is no excuse fornot demolishing but surely in this case something far better could have been done with the place by keeping it totally as it was. always wonder what will be the next.

Had the dogs down this morning and now it looks like an eyesore., a blot on the landscape when it didn’t need to.

I hope the council reject the flats proposal and only allow 4/5 quality detached houses of an appropriate style. The flats look s*ite.

I can’t see it being knocked back, Hartlepool has more than enough grot spots in the town. The last one in Seaton eventually was compulsory purchased by the Council, the old Longscar Haal after it went on fire twice.

The Longscar was true to it’s name, an ugly architectural abomination…..from what I’ve seen of the ‘visualisations’ of the Staincliffe’s replacement they carry on the Longscar tradition
Iconic and groundbreaking are not words that come to mind.

that longscar was an abomination and hated the place from day 1. it should have gone the day after it was built. even made the middleton grange look like a highlight of modern architecture.

Longscar…..ironic that the sewage treatment pump house building near the Golf club car park has more architectural merit than Longscar. Fact.

so true, but at least thats out of the way of sight for most anyway. a bigger shock would be that the longscar if built today would win some award from somebody where awards seem handed out like leaves in autumn.

Lets see what our council allows and lets see who votes which way.

Seaton has so much potential - just the other day it somehow made media headlines for being a hidden gem or tourist hot spot on the rise. Some pesh !

It boils my urine the fact they have let this happen to this building - yet another piece of history down the drain and more ugly modern crap built in its place. Aww and who do you think will be inhabiting these wonderful new flats...

longscar should be built on - nice bar and restaurant wouldnt go a miss or even something else for the kids to do.

I remember Councillors mentioning a paved performance area…another windswept daft idea.

We know now that the council have absolutely zero pennies left - anything they have is either some grant or lotto funded rubbish which goes on useless nothings. I reckon the whole "spade in the ground" to meet a milestone for the new Baths on the Marina again is a load of smoke and mirrors. Do we really think that thing will get built this side of 2040

Season only has potential when the sun is splitting sky, what can you do if it isn’t, play in the amusement arcades ?
Even if the weather is decent what is there to do, kids would rather be at home playing on their electronic gizmos rather than building sandcastles nowadays.

You are so wrong….Saturdays and Sundays are busy days down there even in January.I have trouble parking if I park there over the weekend with the dogs, there’s lots of people out walking, cycling, it’s busy.
Try it.

Seaton is a lot busier than it was & since a couple of new pubs opened on the front,it’s very busy on a Friday, Saturday night.
As for the Staincliffe,it’s shut because no one uses it.

Any venue is only as good as the owners service, find you market and go for it.

The introduction of Larrys Lanes and the restaurant that goes with it, sees me there quite often than not compared to before.
Also the many mini festivals and other goings on they are bringing down there is making the place attractive to outsiders. Plus the fair ground is more a less there all year from about Easter too so that brings a few down.

Know lads ive worked with would only pop to seaton for the fish and chips but now as a say make more the effort because of the new pubs and stuff down there.

plus its a nice walk even on a windy day - adding things of value to the place is a what we need i.e like the pizza truck ... mini golf etc.
definitely not some ugly flats !

When the Wetherspoons arrives we’ve cracked it

They’ve tried a few different things to get people in & it hasn’t worked,there’s plenty of competition now.
It’s unfortunate,but the writings been on the wall for a while.

Some of the management over the past few years has been abysmal.
It is unfortunate ….and I can’t see away around it because it looks like a done deed.
It’s what replaces it that concerns me, from shall we say from an aesthetic viewpoint.

You pass that thought of with a laughing emoji Snowy, but the Staincliffe is the sort of location that Wetherspoons thrives on. They turn run down buildings, like former banks and churches into going concerns. Lots of visitors to a new area look for the nearest Spoons for guaranteed value for money food and drink. Not to mention its potential as one of their hotels.

Good point Mr B, remember going round Folkestone town centre a couple of years back and was well impressed with a building they’d saved there.
You’ve solved the problem, if only…the big event room would make a smashing pub and there should be no planning problems….. changing a hotel and bar/restaurant to a hotel pub is a straight swap.

Wetherspoons use town centre locations, the Staincliffe is only accessible by car and by buses up to a certain time, Wetherspoons wouldn’t touch it.

You on the board of Wetherspoons?
If your ‘theory’ is correct, no other business’s would be open in a busy Seaton then, but they are.
As for only being accessible ‘by car and by bus up to a certain time’…that applies to every other part of the bleedin town…and country…what do you want? …an airport, a ferry terminal……?

just thinking brittania could buy it and flats seem a good option when you think of them.

Snowy we are talking Witherspoons bars not a chippy, ice cream parlour, amusement arcades etc, did they ever open or take over a pub in the sticks ? I worked on various Witherspoons new pubs when they were being ‘built’ including the King John and The Tanners Hall in Darlington to name a couple. I am well up to speed where they opened bars and what their business plan was one of which was always near a Yates which they did in Hartlepool and Darlington but never out of town apart from airports and Shopping Centres.

Quite a few years ago they took over the Queens Hotel in Maltby South Yorkshire which was run down and it is now thriving. Look the place up. A very smallish ex mining town.

Yes Derwent in a town/village where there is regular footfall, I lived round the corner from the Staincliffe years ago, it was never rammed. You could count the number of customers on one hand, and that was when it was busy,The Chapel Bar at the end was one of the few bars if any that had a Snooker Table. Several people tried to make a success of iThe Staincliffe but it only made money from the function rooms for weddings etc.
The only business that made money from the Staincliffe was when Yuills son in law had it, they built bungalows on the tennis courts and sold them off.

now that you mention it - every major city or larger town there is always a Weatherspoons near a Yates ... mental never really twigged on.

id imagine that business plan to have changed somewhat now as im not too sure Yates is even a thing is it ? or much smaller chain than it was.

there is some fantastic Weatherspoons buildings though and they are single handily helping preserve old buildings.

Staincliffe would be a hell of a shout for a larger Weatherspoons - has everythere they need

Before Weatherspoons took the Queens over it could have been described exactly as you described the Staincliffe. Run down, delapidated, only serviced a few regulars etc etc. Spoons completely transformed the place as they have done regularly elsewhere and now it is thriving. One of the secrets of Spoons is that it is family friendly on a daily basis. Whether they would see the Staincliffe as a viable proposition is a matter of conjecture but I would be very surprised if they didn't have a good look. They like big venues where they can pack them in. There are two which we regularly use when we are in the vicinity. One at Tewkesbury and the other at Henley on Thames and they are excellent and well patronised and both were developed from run down and centuries old hotels. Both have brilliant outside areas and are usually very busy and very friendly. You could be forgiven for thinking the Queens was modelled on them.

Derwent we are talking about location, you could have transformed The Staincliffe to any theme you like but it’s not a footfall place in a town centre, changing it into a Wetherspoons would have made no difference, it’s about location location location.

When were you last in Seaton…..on a bender with Ralph Ward Jackson in a pony and trap.
Good management works, it’s years since the Staincliffe appears to have had that .
There are plenty of pubs/restaurants were my custom changed with the management, the days of going to the same pub all the time are over.
If somewhere’s good I return.

Snowy how do you attract customers to a place north of the main area of Seaton, read my posts, I lived round the corner for years , owners/managers come and went. If it had been a viable proposition one of the big breweries or hotel chains would have snapped up, none did, end of.

Mike Newell stayed there when my daughter worked there, he was in the bar one night, he was every night. She refused to serve a customer another drink as he was p*****, he became abusive to her. Newell said and said you heard what she said time for you to go, he did.

No Jamie WE are not but YOU are. I am considering whether Spoons might be interested as are others. You are the one who brought footfall into it. For years now footfall has been falling in town centres or so we are being told. Seaton is making an effort as some of the people who either live there or go there regularly are telling you. They are talking up the possibility of have a Spoons there, nothing more. The ONLY person poo pooing the notion is YOU. FFS

You started off saying only town centres and/or near Yates, now you've added villages. Tell me a few villages you know that have a Spoons.
I have a Wetherspoons directory in front of me listing all the Towns where they have establishments, not a village mentioned.

None of the big boys were interested in the Queens at Maltby but Spoons proved them all wrong. I have lived a few miles from Maltby for over forty years and never seen it rammed and it certainly doesn't attract visitors. It's like your average mining town e g Easington, One main street with a few shops and Spoons. Seaton regularly attracts hundreds of people. No comparison.

Seaton attracts hundreds, only when the sun is shining and that’s not very often and those that do don’t come to Seaton to sit in a bar.

Businesses can’t exist on W.E. trading alone.

It attracts more than an ex mining village, in which Spoons successfully trade.

Are you being contrary for the sake of it?
Weekends, providing it ain’t tossing down, there’s lots of people about, lots walking, but how would I know, being there only on a daily basis…I must have dreamt it.
If only I had a big spy satellite like you.

Seaton only attracting visitors when it’s sunny ,is absolute rubbish.
If that was the case, every business down there would fail,it’s always busy now & the pubs also do very well,especially weekends,they are chocka.

Thank God, bless you, I thought I imagined it.

We are talking about the Staincliffe, it was never chocka W.E.or otherwise in my days when I lived there.
Longscar when it was converted to Coasters, initially chocka but eventually closed, they tried various themes but couldn’t survive on W.E. and summer trade only.
The Staincliffe is an old building which would have meant spending hundreds of thousands of pounds to bring up to a modern day standards hotel, en suite bedrooms etc.