A village inn is enjoying a busy return to life following the lockdowns which have taken place over the last 14 months.

The Samson Inn, in Gilsland, has been able to let people return through its doors for meals, drinks and overnight stays since reopening last month much to the delight of staff and customers.

“We have a staff of 19 or 20 who are all great,” said Liam McNulty, who is one of the owners of the business.

“We do a lot of the back office stuff but its pretty much fully staffed and they are really excellent.

“We get a lot of good feedback for the customer service and the staff deserve all the credit for that.”

Liam went on to explain that although the Covid-19 pandemic had been difficult for the business, they could carry on now they had reopened.

“We kept our core staff from before lockdown,” explained Liam.

“We had 13 staff that we kept on right through lockdown and that’s all of the kitchen staff and a good proportion of the bar and house-keeping staff.

“They’re really quite experienced and that’s been a real advantage when it came to reopening.”

Another factor that the inn has had to consider is that after such a long break due to the lockdowns the region has faced, it has taken a little bit of time to get back into the swing of things.

“We haven’t had the bar open for over a year so people have forgotten things like how to use the till,” said Liam.

“Things that were kind of second nature – that’s kind of gone – but it’s coming back and so far it’s going really well.

“We reopened last summer for bed and breakfast and takeaway meals and that continued until December when the cases ramped up in Northumberland and particularly around here.

“Then we closed again just before Christmas then reopened on May 17.”

As well as offering meals and drinks, the location is also a popular location for tourists and work users for overnight stays as Liam explained.

“We’ve got four bedrooms and they’re really busy now.

“It is tourists, but we’re lucky in Gilsland. It’s a big enough village that we’ve got a few locals but we can’t lie that we depend on local tourist trade in the summer.

“We can do up to 80 meals a night in the summer and in the winter it can be a fraction of that.

“It’s a swing between summer and winter but we can plan for that and we know there is going to be a lot of tourists arriving and they always do so its fine.

The Samson Inn in Gilsand is open every day from 12pm.