Royal Connections

 
Right across the country, you can be assured that a warm and very special welcome awaits you.
 
For something completely different, how about a private castle, sleeping in a sumptuous room once used by royalty? More Than Good Manners can arrange visits to a selection of private castles, including Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire, the family home of the 11th Duke and Duchess of Rutland. Here, you can check into The King’s Rooms where George IV, Queen Victoria and Edward VII all stayed – take a close look at the passage between the bedroom and the ensuite bathroom which the Duchess of Rutland believes had to be widened in the 19th century to accommodate the famously rotund Edward II.
In London there is one hotel that’s top of everyone’s must-stay list: The Goring. It’s traditional, it’s cosy, it smells of worked leather and freshly cut flowers, and it just happens to be where the Duchess of Cambridge spent the night before her wedding. It also serves a terrific afternoon tea (invented, incidentally, in the 18th century by an Englishwoman, the seventh Duchess of Bedford).
Jeremy Goring, owner and great-grandson of the founder of The Goring – the only hotel in England to receive a Royal Warrant from HM The Queen – summarises it brilliantly: “The best luxury hotels all have some things in common: excellent service of course, against a beautiful backdrop. But more importantly they should belong where they are and have personality. And of course personality is what we in England do naturally, better than anybody else.”