I've stayed in thousands of British hotels and this is my favourite, by the Hotel Inspector - plus my other top UK picks, from country manors to a cosy pub By Inspector Calls Published: 12:13, 5 July 2024 | Updated: 12:14, 5 July 2024 e-mail View comments There are hotels - and, then, there are hotel resorts (or resort hotels), offering everything you might possibly want without leaving the compound and then a bit more besides. Estelle Manor in Oxfordshire is firmly in the latter camp, with some 3,000 acres of prime Cotswolds parkland on its grand doorstep. For those of us unaccustomed to opulence at every turn this lavish undertaking takes the gilded biscuit.
First, there’s the long, sweeping drive; then bright young things in tweed insisting on parking your car and carrying your luggage, after which a welcoming committee of sorts makes it clear it’s OK to feel OK. The neo-Jacobean stately pile (formerly Eynsham Hall hotel) was built in 1908 and over the years has been a maternity hospital and police training academy. Sharan Pasricha and his wife Eiesha, daughter of Indian billionaire Sunil Mittal, took it over in 2017 and started to welcome guests late last year.
But the massive Romanesque spa complex has just opened, plus padel courts, vast gym, axe throwing, archery, foraging, falconry, bike riding and even mini, electric Land Rovers for children, along with a kids’ club of the kind you might find in London ’s Mayfair. Estelle Manor in Oxfordshire, which is the Ho.
