Blackwell Grange Hotel

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Blackwell Grange is an early 18th-century country house at Blackwell, near Darlington, County Durham, England. Much altered in the 19th century, it is now a hotel. It is a Grade II* listed building.The house was built about 1710 for George Allan, a wealthy industrialist who died in 1748. The three-storey, five-bayed central block was extended in the mid-18th century by the addition of two substantial two-storey five-bay wings and a ten-bay south garden front.Allan left the estate to his granddaughter, and in 1785 it passed to her cousin James Allan of Darlington. In 1828, it was bequeathed to George Allan, and from him it passed, in about 1850, to a cousin Robert Henry Allan (High Sheriff of Durham 1851), whose mother was Hannah Havelock.In 1880, another cousin, Sir Henry Havelock Bt., came to the property on the condition that he change his name to Havelock-Allan. The Havelock-Allan baronets held the estate until after the death of the second Baronet in 1953.The estate park is now a golf course, The Blackwell Grange Golf Club, and the house is a Forestdale Hotel. In February 2013, it was announced that the hotel will become part of the Choice Hotel franchise with a complete renovation of the bars, lounges and bedrooms.