Welcome to Swinton Park, a luxury castle and spa hotel set in 200 acres of its own parkland, gardens, rivers, forestry and lakes near Ripon on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales: stay here, enjoy fine food, supreme service and a warm welcome as you live the dream of owning one of England’s great castle estates

Swinton Park is a Grade II* Listed castle set in 200 acres of picturesque landscape. It now boasts a ranking as one of the finest hotels in Yorkshire, if not the UK, with its castellated ramparts, turrets and tower, and stately-home interiors overlooking parkland and gardens, woodland and forest rides, a 120-head fallow deer herd, two rivers for flyfishing, lakes for boating and swimming, a shooting school, falconry centre, field archery, axe throwing and croquet lawn, all of which make staying here equivalent to being in your own stately home. Added to which the delicious food in two restaurants, the luxurious spa and gym, three swimming pools including an 18-metre indoor pool as well as the natural outdoor pool, offer creature creature comforts which many a stately home could only aspire to. So if you have always dreamed of owning your own English castle and estate, then come to Swinton Park and let your dreams come true.

In fact, hotels such as Swinton Park are all about dreams, at least for most of us—but then one of our aims at CountryClubuk is to help you live out your dreams at an affordable cost. And Swinton Park offers an experience few hotels can provide.

Swinton Park made a dream come true for a forebear of the current owners, Samuel Cunliffe-Lister. He bought the estate in the 1880s on retiring from his mill in Bradford, Manningham Mills (which at the time was the largest factory in Europe). On his death the Estate passed to succeeding generations, including Sir Philip Lloyd-Graeme, a politician who served in 11 Conservative cabinets and was elevated to the peerage as Earl of Swinton in 1955.

In such a setting and at such a location—it lies on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales—it is hardly to be wondered at that the owners turned their family estate into a top-class hotel 25 years ago. The current 4th Earl of Swinton is Mark Cunliffe-Lister, who with his wife Felicity, Countess of Swinton, realised their own dream of opening Swinton Park as an hotel in 2001, with a prospect of vast renovations and refurbishments to follow, including a country club and a spa.

It goes without saying that at Swinton Park they have created the ultimate country club—and also the ultimate spa. Set over two floors, the spa is huge—one thing about having a 200-acre estate is there is no shortage of land on which to build, and so the spa is a contemporary wood and glass construction, tranquil, light, airy and filled with everything anybody could want in a spa.

Relaxation is at the heart of it all. Waking up to a silence broken only by birdsong is peacefully restorative—particularly when you know that delicious meals will be cooked for you by a trained chef in either the main restaurant, Samuel’s, or at The Terrace Restaurant, which combines relaxation and al fresco dining.

Swinton Park has a growing reputation for its fine dining, with a genuine emphasis on local Yorkshire produce, both from the surrounding estate and from the four-acre walled garden which has been transformed by Susan Cunliffe-Lister. Samuel’s has been listed by the Observer in its Top 100 and by Harden’s as a Top Scorer and with 3 AA Rosettes it is placed in the top 10% of the country’s restaurants.

And always at Swinton Park there is the prospect of enticing things to do all day—the choice is as vast as the estate, and the whole of Yorkshire lies beyond.

The 200-acre estate lies on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales near Wensleydale, eight miles from Ripon. Within the farming landscape, steep-sided valleys combine with high moors, which make for inspiring walks. This is Nidderdale, and beyond are Fountains Abbey, Brimham Rocks, Jervaulx Abbey and of course the lovely town of Ripon and the local Yorkshire villages. Among the lovely gardens to visit in the area are the 85-acre Thorp Perrow Arboretum and Falconry Centre, the 18^th-century Constable Burton Hall gardens and the Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal Water Garden, which is a World Heritage site and includes ruins of the 12th-century Cistercian Abbey. Racegoers can visit York, Ripon, Thirsk, Wetherby and Catterick, all within an hour’s drive of the hotel. Even the Lake District is a scenic 90 minutes.

But you can enjoy a vast variety of scenery, sport and leisure without ever leaving Swinton Park Estate. This is a peaceful retreat with garden and parkland views, sporting touches and a tranquil location on the banks of two rivers, Ure and Burn. Guests can fish the Ure for wily brown trout on the hotel beats. Beyond the estate, the river runs to Aysgarth, where the falls inspired Turner in 1817, and upriver at Hardraw the river produces England’s tallest single-drop waterfall, with no outcrops to interrupt its 96ft fall. You can walk behind the sheet of water against the rock face without getting wet.

No fewer than 25 farm tenants farm various types of holdings on the Estate, from fully equipped farms to bare land holdings and annual grazing licences. Indeed, a country village-like atmosphere envelops this delightful, carefully restored castle and outdoor spaces.

Swinton Park is not a mega-hotel by any means. There are just 42 en-suite bedrooms in the castle and the coach house. The atmosphere is much more English stately home than hotel, with tall ceilings and chandeliers; marble fireplaces, gilded cornicing along walls hung with oil paintings, polished wood floors with Persian rugs, and vast windows giving on to views of the parkland. The ancillary rooms are all stately-home essentials: a library, sitting room, private dining room, drawing room, dining room, morning room and lower hall. There is also a bar (in the family museum) and Victorian games room.

The aim is to provide a thoroughly friendly, unstuffy atmosphere, at the same time rendering the highest standards of service. This is not necessarily an easy thing to achieve—but they have done so at Swinton Park and you will enjoy the experience very much.

Swinton Park is superb—and we are delighted that our Members enjoy exclusive advantageous rates there. To check current availability and best rates for your specific dates, please complete the form below or call Member Services on 020 7399 2960.

Swinton Park
Masham
Swinton
Ripon
Yorkshire
HG4 4JH
Click to visit the Swinton Estate website.

 

 

 

 

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