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    Royal Holiday Handbook
    Royal Holiday Handbook
    Royal Holiday Handbook
    Ebook172 pages1 hour

    Royal Holiday Handbook

    By Sorrel Downer

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    About this ebook

    Visiting castles, palaces and stately homes is a pleasure, but sleeping in them is a thrill. Written by British travel journalist, Sorrel Downer, the Royal Holiday Handbook is your guide to Britain’s most unique and exclusive accommodation. From stately home hotels and inns on royal estates, to castles, follies and cliff-top forts to rent and call your very own (if only for a week or weekend), each has been hand-picked for combining a history of romance and scandal with the necessary towers, turrets and moats. Over the centuries, they have hosted kings, queens, dukes, lairds, mistresses, knights, social climbers - and the occasional ghost! Now restored, luxuriously furnished (and equipped with all mod cons), the same royal hospitality is extended to you.
    Plus discover where the Royal Family buy their gifts, jewels, kippers, gloves, cereal, champagne, shirts and handmade shoes and shop for the Best of British with The Royal Shopping Directory. Features over 100 holiday properties. Illustrated.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSorrel Downer
    Release dateJun 2, 2012
    ISBN9780957298118
    Royal Holiday Handbook
    Author

    Sorrel Downer

    British journalist and filmmaker.

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      Book preview

      Royal Holiday Handbook - Sorrel Downer

      COPYRIGHT

      ROYAL HOLIDAY HANDBOOK

      By Sorrel Downer

      Copyright 2012 Sorrel Downer

      The author retains sole copyright to this book.

      All rights reserved.

      Published by Joy Soup

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      This ebook is licensed for your use only. It may not be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or otherwise including printing and photocopying without permission in writing.

      If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Cover image: Leeds Castle, courtesy of Leeds Castle Foundation

      Clerk of Works: Dave Harper for Joy Soup

      Joy Soup, 11 Harley Court, Harley Place, Clifton, Bristol BS8 3JU

      Enquiries: info@joysoup.co.uk

      INTRODUCTION

      Visiting castles, palaces and stately homes is a pleasure, but sleeping in them is a thrill. The Royal Holiday Handbook is an insiders’ guide to Britain’s most exclusive accommodation, from stately home hotels and inns on royal estates, to forest follies and cliff-top forts to rent and call your very own – if only for a week or weekend. Handpicked for combining a history of romance, scandal and intrigue with the towers, arrow-slits, Great Halls, turrets and moats of breathtaking architecture, many of the places included have remained in the same aristocratic families for centuries. Over the years they have hosted kings, queens, dukes, lairds, mistresses, knights, social climbers (and perhaps, in just one or two, the occasional ghost). Now restored, luxuriously furnished (and equipped with mod cons), the same royal hospitality is extended to lucky old you.

      But a Royal Holiday goes beyond being King (or Queen) of the Castle. You’ll need stuff. We reveal where the Royal Family buy their gifts, jewels, kippers, gloves, cereal, champagne, shirts and handmade shoes allowing you to shop for the best of British. And we give you the lowdown on the high life as we reveal the London haunts of today’s young royals from Boujis to Reiss.

      NB: Downton Abbey, the Yorkshire home of the Earl and Countess of Grantham, DOES NOT exist and you cannot stay there. No, Britain’s best-loved country house is a made-up place. However, Julian Fellowes had Highclere Castle in mind when he wrote the television series, and much of the filming took place there. Home to the 8th Earl and Countess of Carnarvon, it used to be best-known for having been home to the 5th Earl of Carnavon who, with Howard Carter, discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun. The House and Grounds (to the west of London) are generally open to the public during Easter and summer holidays and a few other days throughout the year. Plan and book your visit at www.highclere.co.uk

      Spoil yourself! Save Britain! By staying in a historic building, you are helping to preserve it. Several ancient family seats sold off in the 20th century to cover the death duties after two World Wars languished as institutions and schools before being rescued and converted into hotels at great cost, and now their sole raison d’etre is to receive guests. The owners of other estates, the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, Viscount Coke, the Marquess of Northampton, Lord Montagu and the Duke of Northumberland among them, have chosen to throw open the doors of spare wings, towers and cottages to paying visitors to subsidise the hefty running and repair costs.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      How to use the Handbook

      We’ve divided accommodation between Hotels (including inns and B&Bs), and Exclusive Use (castles, towers and estate cottages which can be rented in their entirety on a self-catering basis, usually for a minimum of 3 days). In both sections listings are arranged by country, then regions, (and for England, counties) and finally alphabetically. We’ve included a guide to London’s Royal Haunts, and the Royal Shopping Directory divided into categories from bespoke tailors to basic grocers. Clicking on the section headings will bring you back to the Table of Contents.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      COPYRIGHT PAGE

      INTRODUCTION

      HOTELS

      England: South East

      England: South West

      England: East

      England: Central

      England: North

      Scotland: Borders & Lowlands

      Scotland: East

      Scotland: Highlands

      Wales: North

      EXCLUSIVE USE

      England: South East

      England: South West

      England: East

      England: Central

      England: North

      Scotland: Borders & Lowlands

      Scotland: East

      Scotland: Highlands

      Wales: North

      Wales: South

      LONDON’S ROYAL HAUNTS

      Dining

      Clubs

      London by Day

      THE ROYAL SHOPPING DIRECTORY

      Department Stores

      Clothing

      Shoes & Boots

      Gifts

      Groceries

      Libation

      FURTHER INFORMATION

      THE AUTHOR

      HOTELS

      ENGLAND: SOUTH EAST

      Cliveden, Taplow, Berkshire

      Claiming to have been dedicated to the pursuit of pleasure, power and politics for over 300 years, Cliveden is clearly a top choice for a weekend break. This utterly grand stately home, surrounded by nearly four hundred acres of gardens and parkland has played host to virtually every British Monarch since George I. Rebuilt after fires, the current house, while architecturally stunning and stuffed full of art, is best known for its owners and guests. Its history started as it meant to go on in 1666 with George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. A Mills & Boon style rogue, he built the original house as a place to entertain his various mistresses and created mayhem, fatally shooting the Earl of Shrewsbury for example, in a duel over his wife. Intrigue, infidelities and scandal continued. The millionaire William Waldorf Astor bought the house as a fabulous family home in 1893, but after the tragic death of his young wife the following year, the devastated man became a recluse. When his son Waldorf Astor met his future wife Nancy, he gave it to him. After all that, in 1961 its swimming pool was the backdrop to the explosive, political scandal, the Profumo affair, a love triangle between Profumo (Secretary of State for War), call girl, Christine Keeler, and a Soviet spy. So many people have enjoyed such extravagant hospitality here over the years, that when frequent guest and one-time Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, was told that the house was to become a hotel, he replied it always has been. It became a hotel – officially – in 1985. Taplow, Berkshire SL6 0JF; t: +44 (0)1628 668561; www.clivedenhouse.co.uk

      Hartwell House, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire

      Fit for a king – a French one. The exiled Louis XVIII lived at Hartwell from 1809 until 1814 when he was sent back to France and put back on the throne. Apparently he kept a menagerie on the roof. This very grand property with its Jacobean carved staircase, extraordinary decorative ceilings, antiques, fine furnishings and huge, stately rooms (including a dining room modelled on that at 11 Downing Street) gives an idea of what aristocratic country house living was like in his day. Relatively recent hotel guests include Bill Clinton and the Emperor of Japan. The weekend’s hardest choice will be between a deep sofa beside a crackling fire, and a walk through the attractive 90-acre estate with its canals and bridges, statues and follies. Aylesbury Buckinghamshire HP17 8NL, t: +44 (0)1296 747444; www.hartwell-house.com

      London Syon Park, Brentford, Greater London

      The interior design might be cool and cosmopolitan, but the hotel sits at the edge of the 200 acre Syon House estate, the country home of the Duke of Northumberland for over 400 years. Syon House is still the London residence of the Duke, and the hotel makes a handy base for exploring what is the last surviving ducal estate in Greater London, from grounds to the private apartments. The estate once belonged to the church and was much loved by King Henry VIII’s first wife, Catherine of Aragon. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries (in which Henry got rid of the most powerful abbeys – and abbots – in the land, appropriating all their assets), the estate went to the Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector to the king’s young son, Edward. Somerset managed to build Syon House on his new land before his fortunes changed and he was executed. During his short turn on the throne, the sickly Edward named his young cousin, Jane Grey, as his successor. She was presented with the crown while staying here, a terrible idea that didn’t go down well with Edward’s half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth. Guards were sent to take her from Syon to the Tower of London where she was, inevitably, executed.

      Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland, acquired Syon through marriage in 1594, and the Percy family has lived in the house ever since. Henry was a true Renaissance man, a friend of Raleigh and the playwright Marlowe, and patron of astronomer Thomas Harriot who mapped the moon from Syon (allegedly before Galileo). Unfortunately Henry was also a cousin of Thomas who was involved in the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament, and because of the connection was imprisoned in the Tower for 16 years. The next lot of Percy’s had safer relationships with royalty, one serving as governor to the future King James II, and another as governess to Princess Victoria.

      Syon House is famed for its interiors created by Robert Adam and finished, as he himself puts it in a style to afford variety and amusement. The brand new hotel, set on the edge of the estate, while modern in design, aims for the same atmosphere. This is the English Country Playground as only Waldorf Astoria could dream it they say. The Martini Bar is a nod to Syon Park’s historic Ice House, and High Tea on the Terrace continues a 400 year Syon tradition of afternoon tea, but the closest link to the past is the view of landscaped grounds, and the grand house itself. Brentford, Middlesex TW8 8JF, (SatNav: TW7 6AZ), t: +44 (0)20 7870 7777; www.londonsyonpark.com

      The Master Builder’s, Beaulieu estate, Hampshire

      The Beaulieu Estate belongs to Lord Montagu and his elder son, Ralph and covers 7000 acres, including a stretch of Beaulieu River and an area of the foreshore to the Solent. The estate was a gift from King John to Cistercian monks who founded Beaulieu Abbey in 1204, and the river and land sustained the monks for three centuries. King Henry VIII took it away again, and the estate was sold to Montagu’s ancestor. The place is hugely popular with visitors, attracted as much by the National Motor Museum and the splendours of Palace House, as the languid serenity of the gardens, the thought of being by water, and the picturesque 18th century shipbuilding village of Buckler's Hard.

      The Master Builder’s House Hotel which overlooks the river from its idyllic setting in Buckler’s Hard, was once home to the great master builders of mighty ships. Among its

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