Stapleford Park, Melton Mowbray

Author's product rating:   

Advantages:	Pure luxury !
Disadvantages:	I'm glad my company was paying for it !

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

This February I had the fortune to be invited for an overnight stay at Stapleford Park in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. I work for a large investment house and every year the company holds a sales conference at a smart country hotel and the whole sales team is invited. Although, I should probably point out that by the word 'conference' I actually mean piss-up.

I drove through Melton Mowbray at nine in the morning, and had a chance to quickly admire the beautiful olde-worlde village before pulling into Stapleford Park. There are signposts for Stapleford Park in Melton Mowbray, so it's no problem to find.

As I pulled onto the estate, I drove past the 18th-century church and through the gothic archways to the main house. I parked in the hotel car park and there was instantly a valet by my side to help me unpack my car and take my luggage to my room. I was offered a coffee while my bags were being taken up and then the housekeeper came and found me and the colleague I was sharing a room with to show us to our room.

We were shown to the Anne Of Green Gables Room, where our bags had already been set out and our evening dresses hung up. The room was huge and very tastefully decorated in creams and pale greens, with a huge dressing table (big enough for two girls' cosmetics), a bureau and two watered silk armchairs. Thoughtful complementary extras had been left in the rooms, such as a bottle of home-made sloe gin, a bowl of apples and two pairs of slippers. Our en-suite bathroom was almost as large as the bedroom and equipped with a bath/shower, toilet, bidet, vanity unit and heated towel rails. The hotel toiletriies were by Crabtree and Evelyn.

Now in case you're thinking that I bagged a great room by being a sales director or something, I didn't. I'm a PA and whilst a valued employee, I'm not exactly what you'd call high-up in the pecking order! And it wasn't long before we started wandering round to see what rooms our colleagues had been allocated, to find that an immense amount of thoughtfullness and detail had gone into the design of each room. Taste and elegance seemed to be the order of the day.

Every bedroom has a different theme and designers and companies have been invited to provide the inspiration for each room. You had the MGM room, the Crabtree and Evelyn Room (complete with sample of all their products) and the Mulberry room to name a few. A colleague of mine who organised the whole event was placed in the Nina Campbell Suite - a two-level suite of rooms, complete with two cathrooms and a mezzanine that had to be seen to be believed.

As for the rest of the rooms in the hotel, they seemed to have been decorated with just as much elegance and care. The breakfast room faces the lawns and catches the morning sun. The entrance hall is imposing but not at all intimidating. The Library (also a bar) has just the right amount of dark smokiness and stuffed sofas.

During our stay we took part in 'team building exercises' such as building rockets and samba playing, but I won't go on about those here as the activities were provided by an external company. So while there's a lot to do on the grounds at Stapleford Park (they have beautifully-kept gardens, a golf course sports equipment and a spa), I only got to have a whistle stop tour of it the next day before I left.

As far as food went, we had a hot buffet lunch (stew and curry) with salads, breads and rice and in the evening I had duck, fillet steak and lemon tart. It's a testement to the quality that I can remember what I ate two months later!

After the formal dinner in the evening, we had a reception in the Orangerie Room with a bar. The reception ended at 1am and we then moved on to the Library, where they kept the bar open until the last guests left for bed at 6am!

The level of service we received all weekend was terrific. The staff are polite and friendly and while Stapleford Park is very grand and not really the sort of place I'd usually stay at, we were all made to feel at home and valued customers.

The rooms at Stapleford Park start at £250 per night, but they do packages that work out a bit cheaper and I'd really recommend it if you fancy splashing out for a special occasion.