We’re escorted via the Nice Corridor, previous the grand predominant staircase -and then proven via a pokey door that has ‘To the pool’ written on it.
After that, we wind alongside slender passages with stained carpets extra in line with a creaky boozer than a former stately house, the stench of chlorine growing with every step.
After we get to our so-called Grand Room, it’s such a disappointment at these costs: it smells of complacency. A number of the wallpaper is peeling, the toilet is charmless, the artwork work derisory, the lighting hopeless. However we had higher profit from it.
Chilly comforts: Stapleford Park has a grand exterior, however the inside wants lots of care and a focus
Then we hear booming disco music beneath us – and it’s solely 6pm.
‘They should be doing a sound examine,’ says the receptionist.
‘Then we should transfer,’ I inform her.
Thank goodness for the disco as a result of we’re proven to an infinitely higher room up the principle stairs. It has two of the tallest sash home windows I’ve ever seen, a cushty couch and fairly lavatory. Why on earth weren’t we provided this within the first place?
Stapleford Park is a large enterprise close to Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, providing golf, a spa, company days out, weddings and 500 acres of Functionality Brown grounds.
It as soon as belonged to the Gretton household (brewers) till the American entrepreneur Bob Payton turned it right into a resort. Peter de Savary then purchased it, earlier than passing it on to a bunch of traders.
And there’s the issue. The group of traders aren’t hoteliers.
Superbly framed: Stapleford Park sits inside 500 superb acres of Functionality Brown grounds
In the dead of night and dreary predominant bar, I ask for a Kir Royale (£10) and it is available in a sherry glass. We order dinner, however the menu is stuffed with ‘complement’ dishes – £8 additional for steak, £4 for lobster, £8 for cheese.
We’re requested to maneuver via to the eating room (the nicest room by far, with an enormous hearth and fairly chandelliers), however nothing occurs for an additional half-hour. I remonstrate loudly.
A lot of the different diners sense a kerfuffle. My spouse will get shirty with me for inflicting a scene.
However she’s the one who will get cross when her £8 complement sirloin steak (on prime of the £36 fundamental worth) includes solely a few strips of meat sitting on ‘confit heritage potatoes’.
Stapleford Park appears to be like magnificent from the surface and the workers do their finest to faux that staying here’s a actual deal with, however the place wants a radical shake-up.
Or to drop the costs by 50 per cent.
