Coworth Park
Blacknest Road, Sunningdale, Ascot SL5 7SE
+44 1344 876 600 • dorchestercollection.com/ascot/coworth-park
Coworth Park is a converted Georgian manor house that is today part of the Dorchester group of hotels. The land on which the house was built in 1766 was granted to Westminster Abbey in 1066 by Edward the Confessor, an Anglo-Saxon king and saint who ruled from 1003 to 1066. Over the centuries, Coworth House was bought and sold many times until it was purchased in 2001 by the Dorchester Collection. It opened as a five-star luxury hotel and spa in 2010 and is one of very few hotels in the UK that can boast not just one but two polo grounds.
Coworth Park is a peaceful countryside retreat, easily accessible from London and a picturesque, calm, and quiet place where life moves more slowly, and guests have time to enjoy the spa, ride a bicycle or a horse around the 240-acre estate, play tennis, swim in the pool, take advantage of the first-class equestrian center, play polo, or learn to play polo—an opportunity that is rarely offered at British hotels. Guards Polo Academy, part of Guards Polo Club (founded in 1955 by HRH The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh), is based at Coworth Park, and the two polo grounds host regular tournaments. The partnership aims to introduce the sport to more enthusiasts, both male and female.
After a day of exercise or sightseeing, guests may need some afternoon refreshment, and tables in the drawing room and conservatory are set ready every day for afternoon tea. This is served on the prettiest tea service that has the delicacy and pastel colouring of porcelain teawares made in the 1920s or ’30s. Each piece is trimmed with silver, and the design features soft crimson bunches of grapes and gentle mid-blue vine stems and leaves intertwined with the fruit. These lovely teawares create an air of charm and gentility. The tea list offers classic blends and infusions and a selection of flavoured teas to suit the season. The Old English Afternoon Tea is inspired by family teatime favourites and offers neat finger sandwiches filled with smoked salmon with pickled fennel, roast beef sirloin with horseradish, cucumber and cream cheese, and chicken with truffle mayonnaise. Plain and fruit scones are freshly baked and come to the table with strawberry jam and rhubarb and ginger jam (an old-fashioned preserve), and generous portions of clotted cream. The pastries, too, refer back to past times and include some traditional cakes, such as cherry Bakewell, parkin (a type of gingerbread) with apples and muscovado cream, Yorkshire rhubarb and custard Swiss roll, and a Coworth jaffa cake (a real childhood special that topped a sponge base with orange jelly and dark chocolate). For smaller companions, the Kid’s Old Fashioned Afternoon Tea adds strawberry jam on white bread and pastries, such as Jam Roly-Poly, that take us right back to schooldays and are all very yummy!
