A Cumbrian stately home once used by the Kray Twins has reopened to the public with a cafe and plans for glamping and a small museum.
Kirklinton Hall, situated near Carlisle, was put up for sale in 2022 for £450,000 and was later scooped up by husband and wife duo Jessica, 35, and George Palmer, 32, originally from Oxford.
The pair have since spent the past year working to sensitively renovate the site and give it a new lease of life, offering wedding and event hire and overnight stays while also preserving its vibrant history.
The 1660 property was originally built by the Appleby family, and further extended in 1875.
In the 20th century, it functioned as a country house, RAF base, a school, a hotel, a nightclub, a casino and a gangsters’ gambling den as well as a hide-out for infamous gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray.
After closing the hall off from the public to carry out essential renovations for safety last year – Jessica and George recently made the decision to reopen the grounds to give people a chance to enjoy the hall’s gardens and history.
The duo have also added a cafe to the site and work is underway to add glamping facilities including six bell tents to the grounds.
Long-term renovations are still ongoing to transform the main hall and add a roof – but the pair are also planning to add a small museum to the site, to document some of the hall’s history.
Jessica said the decision to offer more for visitors also came after dozens of people expressed interest in the hall, its history and the renovation works going on.
She added: “The idea mainly came from a lot of messages we received on social media. The hall was open to the public before we took it over and we did receive a lot of requests asking it to reopen.
“When we first arrived there were a lot of safety issues to rectify and although we said it was closed, quite a lot of people wanted to drive in and look around and even though we can’t let people into the ruins for safety, we do want people to see it all and the renovations we’re doing.
“It does take a bit of getting used to opening your home to the public and so many people have mentioned getting the renovations filmed, but that’s not something we’d ever want to do.
“We’d like to try and keep it as private as possible in that sense, we’re loving doing it all at the moment so we don’t want to spoil that.
“We want to keep Kirklinton within our community for people who are genuinely interested in it.”
Jess said the new cafe – serving light lunches, cakes, coffee and ice cream – has proved a success so far and that works to build the glamping site are well under way.
She said: “Things have been really good so far and we’ve been really busy. We’ve had the cafe up and running for about six weeks now and our five on-site holiday cottages are doing really well.
“The building work has also now started on our glamping area, which will have six tents containing a king size bed each, an outdoor kitchenette and bathroom and should be ready by next Spring.
“The aim with the cafe was to create somewhere local people can gather and see a bit of history at the same time. At the moment we don’t have a brochure, but that is in the works so people can can walk around the grounds and read about the hall.
“But the plan is to create a little museum at the top of the tower so people can see old historic photos of the places and new pictures of the build and that could be open next Spring.
“Strangely, there’s not a lot of old photos and I’ve asked around there just isn’t many available. So we’re going to have a look in the archives to try and find more.
“It’s such a big, beautiful old building you would expect there to be more photographic records of it, but our aim is to find more pictures for the cafe and museum.”
Jess said that the cafe had also drawn in the hall’s staff members from days-gone-by and old regulars from when it used to be a casino.
She added: “The biggest highlight of opening the cafe has been meeting everyone who has followed us on Instagram as well as meeting quite a few people who remember the hall back in its heyday, especially when it was a casino and nightclub.
“We’ve had quite a few people say they used to work here, gamble or play darts here and it’s fascinating to hear their stories.
“So many people have been supportive and excited about our building and restoration and very kind about what we’ve done already too.
“There are quite a lot of elderly people who know it from a very long time ago and they’re able to see it come back to life, and that’s what makes us really happy, is seeing how much people care about it.”
While the pair are working hard to transform the site – Jess also said they were avoiding adding too many permanent structures to the grounds.
She said: “With the glamping we wanted to provide more accommodation options for our weddings without adding too many permanent structures on site.
“At that point it would become less of a home and more of a commercial venture, so the glamping tents will come down during the winter and it just gives extra holiday and wedding accommodation options.
“With these big houses there does come a lot of expensive issues you have to rectify, so the money from the cafe, holiday lets and glamping helps pay for the restoration of the rest of the property.
“Everything we make from it goes back into the hall, we have careers outside Kirklinton, so it all goes back into the main building and ground restoration.”
Jess and George have hosted a few outdoor weddings over the summer and plan to host more next year.
The pair are also hoping to offer indoor weddings and events once they complete work on the main hall and its roof.
Jess added: “The weddings we’ve done have been amazing. Even though it has been very wet this year, we have had a marquee in the apple orchard and a fire pit and outdoor seating area and we’ve done three events in it this summer.
“We’ve loved every one we’ve done and it’s been a huge success and each one was blessed with good weather
“Next year, we’d like to add to the beauty of the gardens and do more work to increase wedding photo opportunities.
“We have 10 weddings planned for next year, which we will stick at as with Kirklinton being our home we don’t want to overrun it too much and we want it to keep its magic.
“There are a lot of amazing places that are just wedding venues and that’s great, but it’s important for us that Kirklinton is not just a wedding venue.”
Once renovations are further ahead, Jess said the pair are also planning to host seasonal events in the hall and its grounds.
She added: “Once we have the roof done on the main hall and the glamping sorted we will be able to put on a lot more events.
“Hear me out – but I would love to put on a jazz casino night in the main hall because I would love to bring back that vibe of how it used to be run and I think a lot of people would love to see it have a bit of that life back.”
People are welcome to visit the grounds for £2.50 per person per visit. Those who are using the cafe are able to visit for free and the hall is open Sunday to Friday from 10am until 4pm.
Everyone is welcome – but those looking to do commercial photoshoots are asked to get in touch for relevant permissions first.
