The Norbreck Castle Hotel

Overview
The Norbreck Castle Hotel is located on the North Shore Blackpool sea front in Blackpool, England. This Hotel has 480 bedrooms and 22 conference suites.

The Norbreck Castle Hotel is the largest combined hotel & conference venue of the Britannia Hotels group, this UK based hotel company with 33 hotels across the country is currently the largest privately owned hotel chain in the UK.

History
The Norbreck Castle Hotel started life as a stately manor house and became a hotel almost by accident.

Built as a grand manor house in 1869 and sited in acres of pastoral countryside, it was purchased by J.H. Shorrocks in the latter years of Queen Victoria's reign. Mr Shorrocks initially used the house to entertain his friends and colleagues at lavish weekend parties and as word spread of his grandlose entertainments, so did the number of people who called themselves "friends and colleagues". The astute Mr Shorrocks was not slow to seize an opportunity when he saw one, started to take paying guests. little did he know that he was laying the foundations for what was to become one of the largest and most famous hotels in the north of England.

In 1912 J.H. decided to take the plunge and form a public company which he did at the same time increasing the size of the manor house affected by the great war of 1914-1918 and the Hydro continued to gain in popularity. Encouraged by his sucess, Mr Shorrocks instigated more changes in the early 1930's and added an elegant ballroom, a swimming pool and a solarium. By then the Hydro was patronised by nobility and the British upper class, in addition to being a venue for the top stars of the say the stage, screen and radio.

Trying times were just round the corner though, and soon after the outbreak of World War II, the hotel was commandeered by the British government. The Hydro was invaded, not by the enemy but by hordes of civil servants who moved in together with their desks, tables ect. The opulent premises became somewhat less opulent and it was to be 11 long years before the civil servants "vacated their rooms". The hotel was finally handed back in march 1951 and a new era started. Unfortunately, J.H. Sharrocks did not live to see this happen.

1951 Hotel Boasted:-
*Open air car parking for 250 cars
*Five tennis courts
*An 18 hole golf course
*A bowling green
*A restaurant seating 600 people
*A ballroom which when used for confrences seated 850 people
*A second smaller ballroom for private parties
*Two cocktail bars
*A swimming pool
*400 bedrooms, 97 of which had private bathroom

The Conference Exhibition and Banqueting Centre
Norbreck Castles Meeting and Banqueting rooms including Blackpool’s famous Noralympia Conference Centre, the largest conference venue in Blackpool, capable of holding more than 3500 people.

SARS incidents
In 2003, the hotel forced some schoolchildren returning from the Far East who had been staying at the hotel to leave over concerns about SARS.

Criticism
Writing in the New Statesman about the 1988 merger between the Liberal Party and Social Democratic Party that formed the Liberal Democrats, Jonathan Calder said: "Blackpool’s Norbreck Castle Hotel does not lift the spirit at the best of times, and in January 1988 its Soviet ambience was enhanced by the trams and melting snow in the streets outside."

Awards
In 2007, the hotel was a finalist in the business tourism category for the Blackpool Tourism Business Excellence Awards 2006.

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