Sudeley Castle

Set in 28 acres of beautiful Warwickshire countryside, Sudeley Castle, a grade II listed building, is Warner Leisure's 14th property and their newest landmark hotel.

In 1834 Francis Lyttleton Holyoake, high sheriff of Warwickshire, had a vision and a shed load of money -£120,000 to be precise, an eye-watering £14.5m in today's money. He commissioned the building of Sudeley Castle, enlisting Samuel Beazley, a renowned theatre architect, to design it in a Gothic Revival style. For the next 60 years the Castle served as an extraordinary family home with no expense spared. Ultimately, though, the decadent living used up the family fortune and Francis was declared bankrupt.

In 1903, Lady Warwick purchased the building and transformed it into the Sudeley Agricultural College for Women to provide horticultural training to daughters of the gentry. It was later requisitioned by the government and became a training camp for the Women’s Land Army during the First and Second World Wars, and remained a women’s-only college for the next 60 or so years.

In 1969, the building gained its Grade II* listing, and after a time as offices and a conference centre, in 2006 it was converted into a country house hotel. When the hotel closed in March 2016 Warners snapped it up and began an ambitious £50m renovation and development programme to restore it to its original grandeur.

Friends M, J and I have recently enjoyed a 4 night break. 

After spending a couple of hours in Stratford-upon-Avon we arrived at this beautiful hotel.

Our rooms were lovely, as is the whole hotel, with excellent facilities

A beautiful tranquil spa

Lots of lovely quiet areas to relax, curl up in a chair or sofa to read

Bars and lounges

There's lots to do, walks in the area, archery, boules, clay pigeon shooting, quizes, board games

And two restaurants serving heaps of delicious food.

Some of it is buffet service but due to covid most is table service now.

We go with Crusader Holidays, they pick us up close to home and deliver us to the doorstep. They always include two trips and one optional trip. Our first excursion was to the lovely town of Malvern. The weather was warm but overcast. True to form we spent a fair amount of time in charity shops!

Great Malvern Priory

I wonder if the people who did this were drunk at the time!

Park View apartments look very nice, I think I would like to stay there.

This theatre is very nice inside with a lovely cafe patio overlooking a park at the back.

It has a great programme of plays.

I have loads of photos from our next two excursions, so I will do a seperate post for them.

∼ Be safe and well ∼ 

Polly x