A POPULAR tea room is reopening under a new name in Bellingham.

Carriages Tea Room, previously at the former Bellingham Station, is moving on to Boggle Hole Golf Club.

The tea room was located inside two Mark 1 railway coaches outside Bellingham Heritage Centre.

The owners have worked on the historic railway coaches alongside Bellingham Heritage Centre for a decade, but have decided to part ways and develop their own restaurant at the golf club.

The Carriages Tea Room will reopen at the golf club on Wednesday, February 2, with an updated menu including Sunday carveries.

However, the railway carriages themselves will remain in situ outside the former station house, and a new tea room service run by Bellingham Heritage Centre will operate under the name, Tea on the Train.

Steve Gibbon, chairman of Bellingham Heritage Centre, said: “We are looking forward to this exciting new enterprise and look forward to welcoming back regular customers and attracting many new visitors to the area.”

There will be a loyalty card scheme and discounts for Friends of the Heritage Centre.

"Tea on the Train hopes to be up and running, or should that be 'all aboard', in the first week of March.

Food served by Tea on the Train will be home-cooked and the ‘lite bite’ lunches are described as the perfect midday treat.

The tea rooms will continue to operate from the railway coaches in Station Yard, painted in colours of the old Border Counties Railway line.

The Heritage Centre is looking to recruit friendly and welcoming part-time waiting staff and managing staff to help run the tea rooms.

Anyone interested in either role should in the first instance contact either Steve Gibbon on 01434 344383, or Wesley Turnbull on 07800 853475.

The waiting staff will be expected to start in March, 2022, while the managers will start earlier in February.

Bellingham was once one of the stops on the Border Counties Railway line which ran from Hexham to Riccarton Junction.

The railway opened in1858 and was completed by 1862, but the level of commercial traffic did not reach the expected targets and the line closed to passengers in 1956.

It was completed closed in 1963.