Wetherspoons investing £5m into creating Newcastle city centre hotel and 'super Spoons'

Pub operator J D Wetherspoon is to invest more than £5m into turning a Newcastle city centre venue into a ‘super Spoons’, complete with a new hotel and beer garden.

The pub giant has owned and operated The Mile Castle in Newcastle’s Westgate Road for more than 15 years, having acquired and transformed the former Sports Cafe into one of the biggest pubs in the city. Now the company is finally moving forward a plan it first started on before the pandemic – to double the size of the pub, add a 26-bedroom hotel and create a new 3,000sqft beer garden.

Wetherspoon started work on the scheme back in 2018 when it snapped up the adjoining building Gibb Chambers. The hotel is being built within the building, formerly the home of law firm Samuel Phillips. The development will result in 70 new full and part-time jobs, to add to the 130 people already employed at the pub.

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The pub, which first opened in December 2009, will undergo a full internal refurbishment, to include decoration, new carpet, upgraded lighting, extending the bar on the third floor and creating a new cellar. In the hotel, all rooms will be en-suite, with two designed specifically for guests with disabilities.

Work on the pub will begin on May 13, and the pub will be closed from June 24 until its re-opening day on September 3. Construction on the hotel will also start on May 13 with the hotel set to open on November 12.

Wetherspoon founder and chairman Tim Martin said: “The investment highlights our commitment to the pub, its customers and staff, as well as the city of Newcastle. The Mile Castle is an extremely popular pub and we are confident that our customers will welcome the work being undertaken in the pub as well as the creation of our first hotel in the city.”

The pub operator won a bidding war with 30 other firms to acquire the Grade II listed Gibb Chambers in 2018. The nearest Wetherspoon hotel at present is in Whitby, at The Angel Hotel, where prices start at £65 per night. JD Wetherspoon opened its first hotel in 1998 in Shrewsbury and now has 67 around the UK.