The Manor House Hotel

Castle Combe, “The pret­ti­est vil­lage in Eng­land”, where time has stood still since the Middle Ages, is the set­ting for a true jewel of Eng­lish hos­pit­al­ity. A her­aldic crest, embed­ded in a pair of unpre­ten­tious wrought iron gates at the end of the vil­lage, is the dis­crete entrance to a drive­way, which winds along­side the river Bybrook and tan­tal­isingly reveals The Manor House Hotel in all its breath­tak­ing beauty.

Ori­gin­ally built in the 14^th cen­tury to replace the dilap­id­ated Nor­man castle, after which the vil­lage is named, it has seen many Lords of the Manor. The most fam­ous is believed to have been Sir John Fal­staff, immor­tal­ised by Shakespeare in Henry IV. The Bar­ony of Combe con­tin­ued for some 850 years until 1947, when it was sold and sym­path­et­ic­ally evolved into a lux­uri­ous hotel and golf club, part of the acclaimed Exclus­ive Hotels group. Its grounds cover 365 acres of wood­land, park­land and formal gar­dens and include the Manor House Golf Club, a cham­pi­on­ship course with daily hand-cut greens and man­i­cured tees.

In their room, guests can expect a pil­low menu, fresh milk, warm, homemade bis­cuits and the com­fort of hand-sprung mat­tresses. Many bath­rooms have huge walk-in showers, with heated floors and invig­or­at­ing body jets. Some even have plasma screens so you won’t miss your favour­ite pro­gramme from the sump­tu­ous lux­ury of your bath.

If you’ve never really con­sidered a hotel res­taur­ant as a din­ing venue before, the three AA Rosette Bybrook res­taur­ant will surely change your mind. Exec­ut­ive Chef, Richard Dav­ies, has vast exper­i­ence with Gor­don Ram­sey and with run­ning his own Michelin-starred res­taur­ant, Saw­yards, in West Sus­sex. The Manor House is com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing Food Her­oes, an Exclus­ive Hotels’ ini­ti­at­ive to pro­mote and work with local sup­pli­ers from in and around Wilt­shire. Pro­duce for the Bybrook res­taur­ant also comes from the kit­chen garden, where a fam­ily of hens and chick­ens range freely.

The cof­fee sup­ply for the hotel, golf club and indeed the whole of the Exclus­ive Hotels group is in the hands of Café du Monde. That includes cafetière ser­vice, bulk brew fil­ter cof­fee, a La Spaziale espresso machine using Fairtrade cof­fee beans and the innov­at­ive ‘Ser­vice en Chambre’. This is a deluxe gold embossed, leather bound in-room bever­age ser­vice sys­tem, that includes cafetière cof­fee, tea bags and ancil­lar­ies for guests to enjoy a hot drink in their room.

Hotel Gen­eral Man­ager, Paul Thompson, described the ser­vice he gets from Café du Monde: “For a pres­ti­gi­ous 5-star hotel like The Manor House, the qual­ity of the end product is para­mount. With Café du Monde, that is a given. But other factors are import­ant too. We need a single sup­plier for our diverse cof­fee needs from bed­room to lounge, from din­ing room to ban­quet­ing. They take care of that com­pre­hens­ively. The icing on the cake is their ser­vice. They are respons­ive, per­son­able and very efficient.”

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