Nestled in the village of Wooler and surrounded by snow-covered hills, one of Northumberland's most anticipated tourist attractions is entering the final stages of its construction.
Ad Gefrin is set to be one of the biggest-ever investments in tourism in north Northumberland and it's hoped that it will put the town of Wooler on the map, as well as boosting tourism and hospitality businesses in the area by extending the busy summer season (something that Lilidorei at the Alnwick Garden, also due to open in spring 2023, also intends to do).
Originally scheduled to open in autumn of this year, it was listed by the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC as one of the most exciting museum openings in the world for 2022. However, that was put back to spring 2023 in August, with co-founders Eileen and Alan Ferguson wanting to offer "the best possible experience" to visitors and staff alike - and in December it was recommended by Time Out as one of the 23 things to do in the UK in 2023, alongside three other Northumberland sites.
Read more: Northumberland distillery releases first whisky blend ahead of opening next year
Ad Gefrin is made up of two elements - a museum and visitor centre celebrating the Anglo-Saxon Golden Age, and Northumberland's first ever whisky distillery. Built on the land of the former Redpath's Haulage Yard on South Road in Wooler, the ground floor has a bistro with an open kitchen along with a gift shop - but it's upstairs where visitors will go to learn about the history of the site.
Ad Gefrin's first floor houses a recreation of the Old Great Hall at Yeavering, the former summer palace of Northumbrian Royalty. It is the same height and width as the original, though it's up to projectors to give the overall impression of the length once the site opens.
That Great Hall replica is connected to an interactive section of the museum where artefacts on loan from the British Museum and Shakespeare Birthplace Trust will be displayed, such as the Castle Eden Claw Beaker and a replica of Frank's Casket. Once visitors have finished in the museum, they have an option to visit the distillery.
The first to legally produce whisky in Northumberland, it's a spectacular high-ceilinged room with huge windows which captured thousands of snowflakes as the temperature hit -8 on the day of our visit. Unusually for a distillery, all components are in the same building, rather than a collection of smaller buildings each housing a different stage of the process as you'd get at some in Scotland - for example, Talisker on the Isle of Skye.
While impressive in general, there are several smaller distinctly Northumbrian details which plant Ad Gefrin firmly at home in Wooler. The wood on the building's exterior comes from a single Kirkharle oak tree, while what was once the stonework around the front door of the Redpath Haulage Yard has found a new home on the ground floor of the distillery - and there are further original features throughout the building.
And that's come from a desire from the founders to reflect the building's history. Eileen Ferguson, co-founder of Ad Gefrin along with her husband Alan, said: "We've tried to use what we can, this is a historic site so we've tried to reflect that.
"The site itself has so much history, but we've also got all the history from Ad Gefrin along the road that has never been celebrated. People in this area are just awakening to the fact that Wooler is of such cultural significance."
And while Wooler's heyday was around the seventh and eighth centuries, Eileen hopes to be part of taking the town into a new era. She continued: "This site has been in my family for almost twenty years, and we really want to give something back to the community and we believe that this is doing that."
"We want make the museum and distillery a really high standard because we believe that the North East has been forgotten about for so long, we've had very little inward investment for decades and we feel this will do something to regenerate the town that I'm from and I love.
"I'm quite emotional about it because I think this whole project represents a great amount of hope. It's taken so long to get here from what started as a dream that the family worked on around the kitchen table and we've got a tremendous team together to build this.
Soon, Ad Gefrin will start to advertise for around 50 roles ahead of its opening in Spring. Eileen continued: "It's creating around 50 full-time equivalent jobs but we believe that the benefits will also spill over in to the high street and all the other businesses involved in tourism and retail in Wooler.
Eileen finished: "We had many ups and downs along the way, but it's the people who have worked with us that have made it possible and we're about to start recruiting more people to be part of the Ad Gefrin family. We hope everybody will be as passionate as we are about this amazing project and that it's not only going to be a tourist destination on its own, but it will benefit Wooler and the other tourist destinations in Northumberland."
Indeed, Ad Gefrin has already made a splash with its inaugural whisky Tácnbora, which means ‘Standard Bearer’ in Old English. It was named by Forbes magazine as one of the "New British spirits to try this winter," though it wasn't distilled on site.
Ben Murphy, director of distilling said of the Northumbrian blended whisky: "So far, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, we're getting feedback that it's a good blend from the general public. We have started using the distillery and making the whisky is going well, we've got a month of production under our belts which has been really productive and efficient in terms of what we're hoping to achieve.
"We've got a long way to go yet, but as first attempts go in a brand-new set up in a brand-new building, it's gone well above and beyond expectations."
It may be at least three years before Ad Gefrin is able to put its name on a single malt, but it's just a matter of months before the doors to the distillery and the museum are thrown open to the public. For more information on Ad Gefrin, visit the website.
Are you planning to visit Ad Gefrin when it opens in spring 2023? Let us know!
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