IN the Darlington & Stockton Times of 50 years ago was a lovely advert for the Uplands Hotel in Crook. Bang up-to-date, the hotel boasted of its “revolutionary microwave instant cooking”. Ping!
The Uplands was an interesting red brick Edwardian establishment, built in 1910 apparently to house German visitors who came over to study at the Bankfoot Coke Works. Its first proprietor was a Mr Schwartz.
The First World War obviously put an end to such friendliness, and it became the home of a GP before in 1947 being converted into a hotel which in 1968 was at the very forefront of culinary technology.
In 1999, £500,000 was spent refurbishing the Uplands ready for the 21st Century, and so in 2003 it was demolished for housing.
MICROWAVE SPECIALITY: The Uplands Hotel, in Crook, pictured in the early 1990s
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