Slaley Hall has six appeal as it picks up prestigious award – again

Courses

Michael Graham
January 16, 2020

Slaley Hall has been voted ‘best golf hotel/resort in the north of England’ in the 2020 Today’s Golfer Travel Awards … for an unprecedented sixth successive year!

The multi-award-winning venue in Hexham – managed by Almarose – topped the readers’ poll in the UK’s best-selling golf magazine for the sixth year in a row, once again seeing off the challenge of a substantial number of other excellent northern venues.

And golfers may enjoy these award-winning facilities for themselves in 2020, with a two-night dinner, bed-and-breakfast break – including golf on both the resort’s outstanding courses – from just £159 per person.

Andrew Fox, Slaley Hall’s general manager, said: “What a great honour! We said last year that we thought the achievement of four in a row was outstanding, so to win five was amazing. Yet, here we are, 12 months on, and Slaley Hall has done it again – six years in a row!

“All awards are well appreciated, but there’s always a special feeling of satisfaction when it is our guests who determine the outcome. There is plenty of choice up here in the north of England, yet our guests return year after year and continue to vote for us. We’d all like to thank them for their support and hope to see them again this year.

“And I’d like to add my personal thanks to all the staff here, who work so tirelessly to maintain the high standards which have earned this reward once more.”

Slaley Hall was also recently voted 34 in the Golf World top 100 UK&I golf resorts ranking and, last year, was the host venue for the grand final of the prestigious Daily Mail Foursomes, believed to the largest amateur golf event in the world, and which will return again in 2020.

Slaley Hall is set in 1,000 acres of Northumberland moorland and forest. It is a magnificent four-star hotel in an elegant Edwardian mansion, with two challenging championship courses, the Hunting and the Priestman, which have played host to no fewer than 18 European Tour and European Senior Tour – now the Staysure Tour – events.

The 7,000-yard, par-72 Hunting, designed by Dave Thomas, has lush sweeping fairways, streams, lakes, towering trees and banks of rhododendrons – but, aesthetics aside, it will catch out the unwary. Well-placed bunkers and tricky greens make this USGA standard course a real challenge. The quality of Slaley Hall’s elder layout is illustrated by the fact the course is often dubbed ‘The Augusta of the North’.

The Priestman course was designed by Neil Coles and opened in 1999. Beautifully maintained, the course has matured magnificently. It sits on the west side of the estate, with panoramic views of the Tyne Valley and some daunting water features, and wind can be a factor on a course which hosts regularly European seniors’ events.

Almarose – the hotel management arm of Aprirose – manages nine championship and tournament golf courses across the UK, spread across seven resorts, having hosted events from the European Tour, European Seniors Tour, Ladies European Tour and the PGA. It is one of the UK’s leading independent hotel management companies, managing a diverse collection of 25 branded and private-label hotel properties.