Those with long memories will know Yorebridge House from its years as the headquarters of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Those with even longer memories will remember it as the first site of the area's grammar school, built in 1850. But since opening as a boutique hotel in 2008, Yorebridge House has quickly carved out a new name for itself as one of the most desirable places to stay in the North.

Owned and managed by husband and wife David and Charlotte Reilly, Yorebridge, on the outskirts of Bainbridge, already has a slew of awards to its name, many of them as a result of the rave reviews it receives from its guests.

Each of the 12 en suite bedrooms has been individually designed by the couple, based on a place that means something to them, such as the Spanish city where David proposed or the town in Italy where they spent their honeymoon. That individual style, combined with a hands-on approach to customer service and staff training and a restaurant which is an award-winner in its own right, has quickly led to national recognition.

David, who has worked in the hospitality industry since being a teenager, and Charlotte, an interior designer, spent years searching for the right place to create their dream business. After scouring the whole of Yorkshire, and then turning down properties in Italy and France, they decided to go back to basics and begin a new search focused in the Upper Dales. That new approach quickly paid off, helped on by a stroke of luck.

Days before Christmas 2006 they visited Yorebridge House which had just come on to the market. "It was a Sunday - it was the first time in 30 years the national park office had been open on a Sunday and they showed us round,” says David. "It was meant to be."

Although the location was right where the Reillys wanted to base themselves, it wasn’t exactly love at first sight David remembers. "It took a while. But when we were ticking our boxes of things it had to have, it had everything. We started to fall in love with it.”

Curiously, while the school operated out of a small building overlooking the River Yore, the grander, and much more substantial, Yorebridge House was the home of the school's master. Grand though it undoubtedly is, after its years as a glorified office block, Yorebridge House was in need of more than a lick of paint to bring it back to life and make it the destination hotel David and Charlotte had in mind.

"It was an office for 120 people and the whole building was partition stud walls," remembers David. "Every wall was covered in wood chip and all the ceilings were artexed. There was a horrible purple carpet that was glued to cement floors. We took everything out and started from scratch. It took 12 months and a team of 30 people just to strip it back.”

It took another eight months to decorate the building, preserving as many of its original features as possible, including the coving and skirting throughout. Each room is not just designed to mimic a place close to the hearts of the Reillys – individual fittings and pieces of furniture have been sourced and imported from the city or country that inspired them.

The former school building was also renovated and contains further guest rooms, each with a deck and hot tub, overlooking bubbling river.

The link to the grammar school is one David is keen to preserve – he has a copy of the original school roll in his office and likes to point out that although the main building was largely the preserve of the headmaster, the room where the toilets now stand on the ground floor was once used for teaching ballet.

Although Yorebridge House is the Reilly’s first venture into hotel ownership, David has a long track record in the industry, including spells at The Cleveland Tontine, near Northallerton, and Chapters, in Yarm. But he says it was while working outside the hospitality industry for high-end electronics firm Bang and Olufsen that he was inspired to open his own hotel.

“I got back into hospitality because Bang and Olufsen is so highly rated when it comes to customer service - I thought we could do something similar in hospitality,” he says. “To get to the level we’ve reached you've got to get the best you can. We went to a lot of hotels here and abroad trying to test it out, to see what worked.”

That dedication to customer service is evident in the lounge before dinner when David takes the time to introduce himself to every guest and find out a little bit about them and how they came to visit Yorebridge House. He also keeps his hand in by doing shifts on reception and behind the bar while Charlotte runs the back of house operations and manages the staff. “She’s the backbone of the building, she keeps the place going,” David says.

Despite opening in the height of the recession in 2008, Yorebridge House has gone from strength to strength, David says, and has won 14 awards in the last year alone. “There's one thing we're aiming for that we don't have yet and that's a Michelin star," he adds. "We're also hoping to get in Visit England. It really is a buzzing business, we've seen growth through the recession."

Consistency is the key word for David, which is shown in their five year record of winning awards including Best UK Breakfast, the AA Gold Star highly commended and being named the most romantic hotel in the UK and Ireland. In recent months, the hotel also won the Trip Advisor Travellers Choice Awards in both the luxury and romance categories.

The hotel’s restaurant, led for the last two years by head chef Daniel Shotton, formerly of Rockliffe Hall, in Hurworth, is also making waves in the award stakes, winning recognition for its stylish food using the best of local produce, including meat from Bainbridge’s own village butcher.

And what does the future hold? More awards for both the hotel and restaurant David hopes, but he and his team also have a few plans up their sleeves.

“There's a barn in the field and we're putting in planning application to create our 13th bedroom. We're also in discussions to create a wine tasting cellar and looking at doing a spa," he says. "We've got some really great ideas, it just depends how we want to do it and when. We don't ever rush into things, we take our time and put things in place and do it right. It's an exciting time for us.”

Yorebridge House, Bainbridge, North Yorkshire
T: 01969-652060; E: enquiries@yorebridgehouse.co.uk.
Rooms start at £200, bed and breakfast, Sunday to Thursday, or from £310 to include dinner. On Friday and Saturday rooms are available with dinner, bed and breakfast, starting from £330.