When you arrive at Carden Park Resort, you immediately realise you are somewhere special, the one mile drive from the gates of the 1,000 acre estate through to reception gives you a glimpse of what’s in store, but only partially.
Carden Park Resort comprises a hotel nestled in 1,000 acres of rolling Cheshire countryside with over 400 staff looking after the needs of guests. The hotel has 198 bedrooms, 3 restaurants and AA Rosette awards throughout the operation. Several bars, 2 championship golf courses with a full service Clubhouse, 14 acres of vineyards producing over 6000 bottles of award winning sparkling wine each year, a 16 treatment room spa and fully furbished gym. State of the Art conference facilities for up to 400 delegates and 18 business meeting rooms of various sizes, archery and clay pigeon shooting areas, 4×4 off road experience driving areas and much, much more.
We were invited to visit and take a look around by General Manager of the resort, Paul Bayliss MBE.
Carden Park Resort is owned by Steve Morgan, founder and chairman of the construction company Redrow, and former chairman of Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. Morgan is investing in and developing Carden Park and Paul is leading that.
Carden Park Resort is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, and like most successful enterprises is not planning to sit on its laurels, improving and developing is front of mind for Steve and Paul.
We know Paul well and as always it was a pleasure to see him, this time on his home soil. Paul rightly has enormous pride in the resort and we set out to take a look around.
The hotel is buzzing with activity, conferences are taking place, it is lunchtime so diners are making their way to their tables and the bars are full with people animated.
The hotel rooms is the first part of the tour, all are spacious and well decorated fitted with all the amenities you would expect from a hotel of this stature. We also visited a recently refurbished bridal suite, any bride and groom would end their special day in a very special room indeed.
We then visited the spa, walking through candlelit corridors filled with the scent of aromatherapy oils that lead to the treatment rooms. The atmosphere alone is calming, there is a hydrotherapy pool, heated stone tepidarium beds, a swimming pool and a steam room as well as a sauna. We did not avail any of the features, but plan to revisit and report in full soon.
Next on the tour are the conference facilities, 18 meeting rooms in total enabling smaller meetings to conferences for 400. The Carden Suite is the largest area and can accommodate banqueting for up to 350 guests. The Shooting Suite with its exposed beams has a traditional feel and can host up to 120 guests with a separate lounge area for break out meetings.
We also took in the vineyard, 14 acres to be precise that from last year’s harvest produced 6,000 bottles of Carden Old Gold sparkling wine.
Detail is everything and as we walk around every spec of litter is picked up and deposited into the nearest waste dispensing utility by Paul, he leads by example.
We had dinner in the AA Rosette award winning Redmond’s Restaurant led by Executive Head Chef, Graham Tinsley MBE.
The varied menu is changed regularly to reflect the season and we enjoyed the summer menu enormously. The front of house team are friendly and attentive, the perfect end to our visit.
The scope and scale of the Carden Park Resort was just too much to try and take in over one day, so we will be back soon to update.
We would like to thank Paul for his hospitality we very much enjoyed our stay.
Denis Sheehan, Publisher, Hospitality & Catering News