Pin high as Ramside unveils cutting-edge sports complex

In a small corner of County Durham one of the UK’s most advanced indoor sporting complexes has opened its doors to the public.

The Pin is the latest addition to the Ramside Hall Hotel, Golf and Spa in Carrville, Durham and the vision of hotel owner and company managing director John Adamson who has described it as ‘unique for the north’.

At its heart is a state-of-the-art 43-bay two-tier golf driving range, which is one of the most technologically enhanced in the country, with hi-tech TopTracer equipment, huge circular targets – which come in Newcastle United and Sunderland colours – and all surrounded by protective netting which stretches into the Durham skyline.

But The Pin is much more than just a driving range and is already attracting new customers of all ages to the Ramside estate on the outskirts of Durham, less than a week after it was officially opened by Dame Susan Snowdon, His Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant for County Durham.

As well as offering the perfect practice area for seasoned and regular golfers, the new range has an offering of computerised games which are ideal for beginners, or visitors who have never even picked up a golf club before. 

There’s also ample outdoor space on both levels for spectators to relax and enjoy a drink.

The venue, which has been under construction beside the original and existing golf clubhouse for more than 18 months, also includes a six-lane bowling alley, electronic dartboards and shuffleboard games, a sports bar offering food and drinks, new golf shop and function room.

The sports bar – which opened recently in time for simultaneous live TV coverage of Newcastle and Sunderland matches – features large TVs including a state-of-the-art curved screen above the main bar, a more secluded first floor bar area and serving Jeremy Clarkson’s new Hawkstone lager, which is brewed using barley grown at the Diddly Squat Farm featured in his TV series.  

And although the new area is open to the public now, the work will not stop around The Pin, with plans on-going for a new golf academy, a short-game practice area and a new 18th hole, which still in construction, for one of the two championship courses on site.

The Pin is just the latest addition to Ramside Hall, which has been transformed under John Adamson who took over Ramside Estates from father Michael and who has implemented more than £31 million in investment and development in the Durham-based business.

It is certainly vastly different from the original Belmont Hall, which was built in the early 19th century by Thomas Pemberton, whose family opened Monkwearmouth Colliery, now the site of the Stadium of Light.

The property was purchased from the Pemberton family in 1963 by Dick Coleman and Gordon McIntyre, who turned to building a hotel when their original plans to use the land for further development for housing were refused by the local council, so they reverted to the old Ramside name and converted the hall into a hotel with ten bedrooms.

Today across the 320 acres there are 127 bedrooms, a farmhouse which sleeps ten, ten treehouses (including one hosts a wedding for up to 40), a luxury spa, health club and gym, four restaurants, employing more than 350 staff across 320 acres. 

And there are now nine various businesses in the Ramside Estates portfolio – Ramside Hall Hotel, Hardwick Hall Hotel (which hosts the annual Hardwick Festival), The Impeccable Pig in nearby Sedgefield, Bowburn Hall Hotel, The Funky Monk in Durham city, Sticky Wicket at the Banks Riverside Stadium, WonderBar and Colonel Porter’s in Newcastle city centre and in Gateshead, The Fed, once known as the Lancastrian Suite, now a switch function suite with 15 newly opened office spaces.

John, pictured below with Dame Susan, said: “The new facilities are unique for the North and continue our ambition to make Ramside’s golf and leisure offering the best in the North East.

“We are on course to meet our ambition to make Ramside’s golf the best in the North East.”

And, after unveiling ethe new plaque, and officially declaring The Pin open for business, Dame Susan added: “Ramside Estates has become the largest and most successful privately owned hospitality group in the region and this ambitious new development will be a great asset not just to Ramside, but to County Durham as a whole.”

Pictured, from left, John Adamson, Dame Susan Snowdon, His Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant for County Durham, and Helen Roseberry, director of Ramside Estates

To find out more about John, who has spent a life in the hospitality trade, read his interview in our sister publication, N, here.

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