From Temperance Hotel to Ponteland Tandoori

An Indian Restaurant since 1988, at the end of the 19th century, this started life as one of Ponteland's two Temperance Hotels.

Temperance Hotels were particularly popular in the larger, more scenic rural villages of Northumberland at the beginning of this period. Improvements in the roads and the popularisation of the bicycle meant that workers could escape the dreary pit rows and have a day out visiting these villages on their bikes. Hundreds of cyclists would flood into Ponteland during holidays and the weekends.

James Caughey was the villager's saddler. He and his family were heavily involved in the commercial and social life of the village, including running the village post office which was next to this hotel. He came originally from Northern Ireland where the temperance movement was particularly strong amongst the province's protestants.

The first mention of a temperance hotel in Ponteland is in 1882 when there is a recruitment advertisement for a servant girl to work at the Temperance Hotel. In the 1891 Census James Stobbart is listed as running a Temperance Hotel but this looks to have been at a different location to here. The Temperance Hotel at this location first appears in the 1901 census.

Photographs from the early part of the 20th century show a virtually unchanged building above the ground floor. The building would have been constructed out of stone but has a distinctive white rendered finish.

The fashion for Temperance Hotels declined after the First World War but the building is still shown as a Temperance Café in a photograph from around 1932. By the end of that decade, it was Wadsworth Drapery and Hardware Stores but still had a café upstairs. In the 1960's it housed Warner and Arrowsmith. This was owned by Geoff Warner, who together with his wife, were pillars of the local community and only died in 2021.