Explore This Chic English Countryside Hotel Where Prince Harry Stayed the Night Before His Wedding
Nestled in the English countryside, the grounds and gardens of Coworth Park are the definition of serenity. You’ll feel like you are exploring a charming country village as you stroll from a main Mansion House past a Michelin-starred chef’s vegetable garden and rooms converted from a stable on to explore a rose garden, sunken garden, and 10 acres of wildflower meadows that come to life with vibrant yellows and blues in the summer. With its idyllic setting, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Prince Harry stayed at the property the night before his wedding.
Today Coworth Park invites guests to its property year-round as a part of Dorchester Collection, a portfolio of luxury hotels around the world. Even with its quiet country setting, its 240 acres are only a 45-minute car drive from London or 20-minute drive to Heathrow Airport. Here we guide you through all the pleasures and luxuries a stay at this beautiful hotel has to offer.
What is perhaps most unique about the property is its professional polo fields and stables, where Prince Harry and Prince William have competed in polo challenges, according to Harper's Bazaar. During polo season from April to September, you can see polo matches happening during your stay. No matter your skill level, guests can also engage in private polo experiences with Guards Polo Club Academy. Equine guests are also treated to a VIP experience at Coworth Park with its pony daycare and equestrian horse hotel, where they will be pampered, groomed and tacked up as required.
The property’s first polo grounds were built in the 1980s to host professional players from the Maple Leaf polo team when Coworth Park was owned by the Weston family. Then, in 2010, following renovations of the original Georgian house on the property, it opened as a luxury hotel.
Its history, though, dates back to 1066 when Edward the Confessor granted its land to Westminster Abbey. In 1776 Cowork Park house was constructed by William Shepheard, a prosperous East India merchant, and it remained privately owned until it became a convent school in 1957.
Before opening as a luxury hotel, spaces throughout the property’s buildings—including 70 guest rooms in the Mansion House and peppered across the estate, many with four-poster beds, freestanding copper tubs, and open fireplaces—were designed by Martin Hulbert. His design reflects the Georgian era of the original mansion while offering a contemporary feel that seamlessly connects with the pastoral landscape surrounding it. The interiors have a calming color palette that is undeniably British, and furnishings, furniture and art in the rooms are mostly all British-made.
After you have explored the grounds’ many gardens on foot, bike, Segway, or horseback, endless possibilities remain for days spent at Coworth Park. You can learn archery or falconry, engage in a beekeeping experience, take a sculpture trail tour around the property, or engage in other seasonal activities that befit the British weather.
Much remains to be seen stepping off the property too. “Outside of our estate, the picturesque journey to Windsor Castle through Windsor Great Park is wonderful, and I always recommend our guests to explore the diverse plant collections at Savill Garden,” General Manager Zoë Jenkins says.
Muddy boots are welcome for lunch at The Barn, a rustic dining spot housed in the original barn frame and boasting a stone fireplace. Its brasserie-style menu serves up “British classics done superbly,” Jenkins says. Her personal favorite order is the Coworth Park beer-battered haddock and chunky chips.
After lunch, the Drawing Room hosts what has been voted home to the best traditional afternoon tea in the country, and in the summer you can choose to take it al fresco in the garden pods or croquet lawn and partake in garden games like chess and croquet.
Any time of day, you can schedule an appointment at the spa overlooking the wildflower meadow and polo fields. The spa, like the rest of the property, is as eco-friendly as it is luxury. The spa was one of the first in the world to incorporate carbon-negative lime hemp walling in keeping with efforts to be carbon-neutral in a landscape setting. Elsewhere in the hotel, hot air is reused to heat water, and in the Mansion House and rooms converted from stables, rain and surface water is recycled as it is drained into the lake and later used as irrigation for polo fields.
You’ll also see sustainability valued at dinner at Woven by Adam Smith where ingredients are soured on the estate or immediate locality and no deliveries are accepted in single-use plastics. The restaurant, a fresh, creative, and contemporary concept, earned a coveted Michelin star within six months of opening, and Jenkins recommends the Cornish Turbot.
Whether you visit in the blooming gardens of spring and summer, the golden hues of autumn, or the magical snowy wonderland of winter, a pastoral escape to Coworth Park is one fit for a royal. It's easy to see why Prince Harry chose to stay here the night before his wedding!
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