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I stayed in 'one-star terrible' Blackpool hotel with paper walls and eternal dripping noise

It was a windy Monday night in Blackpool when the Daily Star's Harry Thompson was sent to get a flavour of life there - and although he needed to sleep we didn't give him much money to work with

[When in Blackpool...]

When in Blackpool...(Image: David Nelson)

The crisps were trodden into the carpet when I arrived, and they were still there when I left 18 hours later.

Finding the worst hotel in Blackpool is no mean feat, theres a lot out there. In the end I decided not to stay at the hotel with the absolute lowest ratings on Google, which would equate to some small micro-business that cant stand up for itself, but rather a hotel that meets the balance of diabolical reviews while is also being big enough to see large numbers of guests pass through its doors each week.

My pick had both of these in spades that, and my local guide said it was an absolute s********.

Enter the Norbreck Castle, a northern outpost of budget chain and headline magnet Britannia Hotels. Of its 8,697 reviews on TripAdvisor (at the time of writing), 4,082 give it the bottom one-star score of terrible, delivering it an average of 2.2 out of five. Let's be clear, the Daily Star has contacted Britannia Hotels for comment. They didn't.

[The Norbreck has an interesting design]

The Norbreck has an interesting design(Image: Lancs Live)

The Norbreck is a towering local landmark. A little over four miles north of the centre of Blackpool, far enough beyond the hubbub and tall buildings that it pokes well clear of its residential surroundings.

Its awkward turret, painted in a dreary black and grey, sticks into the sky, embarrassing yet unashamed, its mock battlements offering imaginary archers protection from the invaders below. In the end, this places biggest enemy was time.

I was checked in by a woman who never did anything fast, but returned a smile and worked with a methodical inevitability that reminded me of a freight train beating across vast open country at steady speed.

In my time there I only once saw another person behind the reception desk with her, and when he was he had to call her out from the back to help him, making her walk out with a mouthful of lunch. I suspect the reason the place is still going is in no small part thanks to her.

[The crisps in question ]

The crisps in question (Image: Harry Thompson)

Last year the hotel made the headlines after TikTok content creator Zac Jones visited, calling it the worst hotel in Blackpool, pointing out all manner of grimy details while caveating that for 35 a night there was still value to be had.

Trouble is, by the time I went a year later, a double room had gone up to 39, with the added luxury of a view overlooking a dilapidated yard with a security light that flashed through much of the night. Could the good times be over?

The Norbreck Castle hasnt always been the whipping boy of content creators and tabloid journalists. Built in 1869 it was once the holiday home of wealthy aristocrats, the Shurrocks, who had such great success throwing lavish parties for their well-heeled associates they soon started renting rooms to paying members of the upper class.

[It maybe hasn't had as much love as you'd want, but the room was clear of any horrors ]

It maybe hasn't had as much love as you'd want, but the room was clear of any horrors (Image: Harry Thompson)

Pictures from the 30s show it as a bustling hub of leisure, almost certainly its glory days. When the Second World War broke out it became a northern haven for evacuated civil servants, and when it was given back to its owners 11 years later in 1951 it had its own golf course, five tennis courts, a restaurant that could seat 600 people and a bowling green, as well as a ballroom, cocktail bars and a range of conference suits.

By the time I arrived 74 years later, traces of its aristocratic exuberance were hard to find. Out of order grabber games lined the corridor on the way to the stairs and a woman with a push chair sat in the lobby vaping. Cheap furniture was scattered sparsely around and strange smells of stagnation greeted me at various points in during the stay.

The carpets were dirty and in my room there was an eternal dripping noise, the exact origin of which I was never entirely sure of.

The room was sparse and the furniture basic, while the bed felt more like a sheet of springs, rather than a mattress. This is somewhere to get you through the night, it has a roof.

[A couple of bits could have been cleaner ]

A couple of bits could have been cleaner (Image: Harry Thompson)

There were some more good times in the decades between, though. In the late 70s and early 80s it cashed in on the exploding music of the time, hosting early gigs of up and comers like the Pretenders, Iron Maiden, Def Leppard and the new solo act of Ozzy Osbourne.

There was politics too. It was the scene of the conference where the Social Democrat Party and the Liberal Party merged to form the Liberal Democrats of today. These days are long gone.

On the night of my stay, Id finished a prior appointment in the centre of town at around 7:30pm, but the thought of getting the tram back for a long night in the Norbreck made me feel cold and far from home, and so I opted to make the 4.4mile journey on foot to kill some time.

As I came up from the windy coastal path, Blackpool now far behind to the South, the towers of the Castle rose grotesquely once more, comically high above the houses around. It reminded me of the carcass of a whale on a beach, horribly-wrong but impossible to look away from at the same time.

A security guard stood at the door as I crossed the windswept car park at around 9pm and it made me think about the Shurrocks and their lavish parties and ballrooms and cocktail bars.

[The room is basic but there are no major complaints ]

The room is basic but there are no major complaints (Image: Harry Thompson)

I thought of the the war, of Blackpools Victorian boom, of tennis courts and joy.

Maybe this is the plight of the people who have inherited the Earth in 2025, the witnesses to failures slow creep, wringing out every last piece of history and profitability to keep things going as long as they can in the name of the very last penny.

That night, I lay in bed and listened to every single word the father and child in the room next door said through the paper-thin walls. I think they were having a good time, adventuring together. Maybe the Norbreck Castle has a few more of those in it before its too far gone.

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