On his birth certificate it stated that my father’s place of birth was in Gilsland which is on the border between the counties of Cumbria and Northumberland.

It turned out that my grandmother, who moved to the north east from Shetland before the outbreak of the Second World War, was evacuated once war was declared because, with my grandfather at sea serving with the Merchant Navy, she had no close family nearby.

She was also pregnant with my father at the time and he was born at the Gilsland Hall Hotel which was used as a maternity hospital during the Second World War.

Fast forward to 2013 and I was working in Cumbria, at the News & Star in Carlisle, and I was sent to cover a wedding reception where the bride was carried there by JCB to the Gilsland Spa Hotel as it was then known.

As I recall I went into the hotel’s reception where I saw a display about the building’s history and realised it must have been where my dad was born.

Apparently it is named from the sulphurous spring which flows from a cliff below the hotel and the original hotel was called The Shaws, from an Old English word meaning a small woodland, and was built in the 1760s.

But it later burned down spectacularly in 1859. It also has a connection with my hometown of South Shields when it was leased to the Gilsland Spa Hotel and Hydro Company in 1893. As well as its use as a maternity hospital it was also used as a First World War military convalescent home.

I did visit the building on Friday (September 27) while I was killing time before meeting a photographer mate in Haltwhistle for a catch up but, as I only had my phone camera, I thought it was worth revisiting the site with the cameras yesterday (Saturday, September 28) after my visit to Sycamore Gap.

I did get chatting to a local and apparently it was recently repossessed by The Crown from the previous owners.

It certainly looked like it had closed, due to the pile of boxes at the entrance, but it was nice to wander round and enjoy the breathtaking views of the surrounding countryside. I did try and find the Victorian spa and swimming pool but I found my path blocked by a fallen tree.