About the House
A short account of the customs house above Grimwald Bay, the Trust that keeps it, and the wardens who carry the day — written by the Trust each November and revised on the wall in the hall.
The Customs House
Grimwald House was raised in the spring and summer of 1791, on a low whinstone bluff above the half-mile arc of Grimwald Bay, by Captain Jacob Grimwald, a customs officer of the Tweed Port who had served eleven years as a revenue cutter mate out of Berwick. The Crown lease ran for the lifetime of his commission and was renewed at his retirement to his son Thomas, who carried the look-out from 1822 until the customs station was closed in 1879.
The building is set on a four-square plan of dressed Northumbrian whinstone, with sandstone footings cut from the quarry at Tugall, a slate roof brought up by sea from Lochan Garbh, and oak from the yard at North Sunderland for the principal stair, the hall counter, and the counting tables of the lower-ground room. The lantern station at the corner of the bluff is contemporary with the house, struck off the customs list in 1882.
The Grimwald House Trust
The freehold of the property passed through three coastguard auxiliaries between 1879 and 1958, when the Grimwald House Trust was constituted as a charitable body of four trustees and the freehold was acquired from the Crown Estate by deed of August that year. The Trust undertook the structural restoration between 1959 and 1962 under the direction of the master-of-works Henry Crowfoot, opened the hotel to its first guests in 1969, and has held the house in trust without interruption since.
The four trustees in office at present are Diana Crowfoot (chair, 1968–), Sebastian Hartshorn (1972–), Eleanor Pinwood (1981–), and Theodore Marston (1989–). The Trust meets each November on the anniversary of the customs decommissioning to settle the year’s standing register, review the duty warden’s notes, and reprint the reading board if any answer has changed.
The Duty Warden
The day-to-day running of the hotel is carried by the duty warden, a salaried position held in turn by three members of the working staff, each on a fortnight’s rota. The warden carries the keys, keeps the standing register, opens and closes the reckoning room on the days the room is opened, and writes a short evening note that is held in the niche under the upper window on the principal stair. The note is read by the next warden, by the trustees in November, and by no one else.
The warden’s working spine of the house is the principal stair: keys are passed at the half-landing, the morning post is sorted on the lower step where the light falls best, and the standing register is held in a niche under the upper window. The warden does not entertain guests in the reckoning room and does not play.
A Restored Counting-Room
The Reckoning Room was returned to use in November 2018 after a four-year programme of conservation work. The original sandstone flags were lifted, cleaned, and relaid; the oak counting tables of 1791 were stabilised and left in place along the seaward wall; the long high-windows east over the bay were re-leaded and re-glazed; and the stair-lift fitted in 2019 brought the room within reach of guests who would prefer not to take the stair.
The room is a feature of the hotel and not its purpose. It is opened by the duty warden from six in the evening until midnight on the days the warden judges it suitable, and is closed at the warden’s discretion or at any guest’s request. The hotel does not host wagers, hold accounts, or operate as a gambling platform; the room is presented as a restored counting-room within a working coastal house hotel.