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Family-run County Durham hotel expands themed room offering with £800k investment

Husband and wife hoteliers Philip and Susan Moiser have expanded the line-up of their luxury themed bedrooms following £800k-worth of refurbishment work.

The South Causey Inn in County Durham has introduced eight new rooms that draw from inspirations as diverse as Captain Cook’s cottage to the Battle of Dunkirk in World War 2 to a US-inspired American Trilogy room.

Located near Beamish, the hotel has form for eccentric room offerings, after the Moisers converted a London Bus into luxury accommodation in October 2015 to complement its 36 rooms, conferencing facilities and mini farm.

Owner Susan Moiser said that the hoteliers had taken inspiration from other establishments that had repurposed the iconic London buses into various other uses including receptions and bars.

She commented: “We created our Trafalgar Square room in October last year after being inspired by something we saw in a magazine about how London buses had been used for things like hotel receptions or mobile cocktail bars.

“It was basically scrap. We refurbished it and converted the downstairs into a luxury bathroom with free standing bath tub and wall mounted TV, with the upstairs being made into a bedroom.”

Such was the success of their London-themed room, the pair were inspired to convert the former equestrian stables on site into the eight new rooms, which have been open since July.

Each themed room includes its own private courtyard, dining area and hot tub, and features en-suite bathrooms equipped with jacuzzis and waterproof TVs.

All of the interior design has been handled in-house by Philip who individually sourced unique and unusual artefacts for each room, which also included a tree and TV housed within a four poster bed for the Treehouse-themed room.

Both Philip and Susan have run the South Causey Inn since taking it over in 2007 in which time they have doubled the number of rooms and expanded the range of facilities at the hotel, which now turns over around £3.5m annually.

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