More online www.thecaterer.com The Winston Churchill room in the House


normalised and is much more similar to what it was pre-Covid, but I don’t think it will ever go back completely to pre-Covid times. The pandemic gave the opportunity for the country house sector to show what we can do and how good the English countryside can be. Leisure is slowing down a little bit and becoming more normalised but corporate is coming back – we just have to reorganise. I was saying to my team a few months ago


The Elizabeth Taylor suite


tion of how much do we believe we’re worth? We’re very conscious that before growing rates we had to deliver that service and experience. It is a high rate, but we don’t charge for extras, so when you book a room you know that will be the only charge on your bill, aside from F&B and spa. Everything else, even the mini bars in the rooms, is complimentary. Then we just shower guests with love and generos- ity because we think they deserve it. It was a strategic decision – not just about growing the rates but about improving the whole experi- ence and it certainly empowered our team and gave them the confidence to be really generous with our guests. We have things like the private ice rink at Christmas where you don’t have to queue and you don’t bump into other people. You can skate for as long and you like and then sit around a fireplace and toast marshmallows and have a wonderful evening with some hot chocolate and lots of treats.


How have you instilled that culture of generosity in your teams? It’s all about the team, because at the end of the day they’re the ones making and selling the experience. They need to believe in what they sell so we immerse them in the experi- ence. For instance, when we launch our Wild Kitchen, a dining experience in the Surrey Hills, where guests can choose their menu, the first two events will be for the team, so when they speak to guests they can explain how wonderful it is and believe in that.


Sukiyaki bao bun in the Dining Room www.thecaterer.com


What are you seeing in terms of occupancy? Countryside properties in particular had a huge boost after Covid, and it’s a known fact that London had it much harder. I think over the past two and a half years that situation has


that for the last few years the wind was behind us and now it’s in front of us, so we’re having to work harder and smarter to keep innovat- ing and achieve the results.


We’ve seen cost increases across the board. How do you respond to that while running such a big estate? Rising costs put a lot of pressure on the team and we have to be really creative about how we manage the business in a way that doesn’t have an impact on members. We have a bio- mass boiler in our spa, which is one of the buildings that consumes the most energy, and luckily, because we have such a large estate, we can recycle a lot of wood and become almost self-sufficient. We can also use the lake when it comes to watering the gardens. In a listed building very few things are automated so we have relied on our team to switch things off and make sure rooms aren’t heated unneces- sarily. Our team were obviously feeling it at home as well, so we ran sessions on manag- ing costs and finances on both a personal level and a business level.


You run activities in collaboration with other businesses – how do you decide who to partner with and what do they bring to the brand? One of the key pillars of our brand is fun. We collaborate with people to create unique expe- riences, for example, we had hot air balloon rides, which I think at the time was the first such experience of its kind and it was magical. We have the ice rink, which has become a sig- nature experience for the brand, and we’ll be launching pickleball courts. We’ve also done collaborations with people like Summerill & Bishop and Château Pétrus. It’s important to know there’s synergy between two brands and that they have the same principles, but the number one thing is that it’s got to be fun.


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