ONE of Barnard Castle’s oldest buildings re-opens this week combining interior shopping and informal dining.
The 500-year-old Blagraves House, previously a restaurant, was bought by businesswoman Eleanor Dinnes earlier this summer.
Three rooms, as well as the bar and courtyard open on Thursday, followed by more rooms and a fine-dining experience in January.
Currently on the menu for people shopping or relaxing at one of the tables are platters of charcuterie and mezze.
Mrs Dinnes said: “It is informal dining – come in and choose five or six different plates which you can have on a big board together to share, or you can have little ones of your own. And then the idea is you have a couple of glasses of wine and do some shopping.”
Each of the rooms combines shopping and dining, and each has its own theme.
The entrance room has a Dickensian feel where people can browse through quirky cards, jewellery, candles and tealights. From there people pass through the bar and courtyard into what has been named Magwitch Hall.
This houses larger interior decorations, from ceramics by Romanian and Portuguese artists to sand-timers fashioned from recycled bobbins.
Mrs Dinnes said: “For some of the bigger interior things we went to Maison et Objet in Paris – one of Europe’s biggest interior and gift shows. We had an amazing time because it took two-and-a-half days to get through the whole thing, and that was rushing.”
Upstairs is the “hunter’s room” – an eclectic mix of items from soft furnishings to menswear – inspired by Mrs Dinnes’ inability to find a Christmas gift for her husband. She said: “These are manly things like leather journals and Captain Fawcett men’s grooming ware with shaving soaps, razors and authentic shaving brushes.”
Some of the decoration is part of the stock.
Mrs Dinnes said: “If you see the wallpaper and you like it, we are stocking a company called Mind the Gap, which produced it.”
She added that other rooms to be opened in January will include a wallpaper and interior design section.
The third floor “blue room” will open to fine dining.
Mrs Dinnes said more than 60 touring groups had come through the building during the renovation work and she had been reassured by their views on the venture.
She added: “I had a picture in my mind of what it was going to look like and I think we have done exactly that, but you never know if people are going to like it.
“We have given so many tours and everybody who has come in has been so enthusiastic about it which has been really important to me to keep going.”
She added: “I just want it to be a really chilled-out place with happy music, nice food and very sociable – sit down at a table, have a glass of wine with friends and do a little bit of shopping.”
Mrs Dinnes thanked Durham County Council’s conservation officers who had worked with her throughout the renovation to ensure everything, even the types of paints used, were in keeping with the grade I-listed building’s history.
She also thanked her mum, Louise, who worked late into the evenings and early in the mornings, while continuing to run her own business, the Black Swan Inn, in Ravenstonedale.
