A HOTEL owner has discovered his building was the first in Britain to have a telephone.

And the installation in 1877 was by none other than its inventor Alexander Graham Bell.

David Wood made the discovery while he was converting the cellar of the former mine owner's house to a gym for his Hedgefield House Hotel.

He came across a box of documents which revealed that Professor Bell visited the house in Gateshead in 1877 while he was in the region to demonstrate his new device to the iron and steel industry conference in Newcastle.

He was invited to visit the Addison pit next, where he laid a cable into the mine so people on the surface could communicate with miners underground.

An official report on the day tells how some 500 yards of single cable were laid from Hedgefield House connected to a receiver to miners underground.

It goes on to say how Prof Bell sang God Save the Queen from the mine, while the piano playing in the lounge of the home was transmitted underground as 14 miners listened in.

Mr Wood, 50, said: "It's absolutely amazing to think that the inventor of the telephone stood here and sang to the miners underground."