Hot tub, gardens and grounds
The garden’s like an extra room here – an extra room with a six-seat hot tub. Hang out on the outdoor seating while you wait your turn to bubble and boil. Let the kids explore the play area and swing set.
You’ve got grass and terraces to help fill a sunshine-soaked day, so stay out for supper cooked on the gas barbecue and enjoy around the terrace table. Pour another Prosecco and kick back amid the lawns and box hedging.
Living spaces
This is seriously special socialising, decorated with the trappings and trimmings of the higher reaches of period south-coast society. Everywhere you look, you’ll be seduced by the ornate ceilings, the regal staircase, the oak panelling and the feature fireplaces. The Tudor Mansion is elegant and opulent, yet it’s lots of fun too.
Once a mainstay of the Bournemouth tourism industry, this iconic building is now the best kind of hotel: the one where you pick the guests.
So get together with your besties and enjoy a living space divided in two – one area with elegant sofas and armchairs for family TV nights and one with plush armchairs and table, perfect for card games and conversation. Or escape altogether and bag the cottage in the grounds for a more-intimate escape.
Cooking and dining
Anyone looking to kick back on the coast or hang around in the hot tub will be thrilled to know that catering can be arranged. Call up our pro chefs for a fully catered break or one-off celebration. Or just get stuck into the two ovens yourself, with fridges full of goodies from Waitrose, Webster’s butchers and Roebridge Farm Shop.
Eat in the baronial dining room with its unique arched ceiling with incredible gold detail, wood-panelled walls, fireplace and long banquet tables seating 24. Or eat al-fresco on the terrace table beneath the south-coast sun, with sausages searing on the gas barbecue and guests simmering in the hot tub.
Take home a takeaway from Yumm Tumms for Chinese, El Murrino for handmade pizzas or Turtle Bay for Caribbean treats such as jerk chicken breast and rum BBQ ribs. Enjoy a bottomless brunch or a beer and burger at The George Tapps, British pub grub with a side of karaoke at The Overcliff or a mac-and-cheese dirtyburger at O’Neill’s.
Head to The Queen’s Restaurant for grilled fillet of bream or seared quorn fillet. Try the taste of two AA Rosettes at Arbor, with its unfussy tasting menu, private dinners and afternoon teas. Or try Escoffier, named after an iconic French chef and featuring gourmet and themed menus compiled by students in training.
Bedrooms
Modern comforts blend seamlessly with a huge sense of history in all 12 bedrooms here, each one supported by its own luxury bathroom. Get your guest list up to 30 with extra space in the on-site cottage, with kingsize and sofa bed. Or go beyond even that, with floor mattresses available for an extra fee.
On the ground floor, bedroom one offers a double bed that can split into twins, while bedroom two provides a kingsize bed and desk. Up the grand staircase on the first floor, bedroom three is another double with desk, and bedroom four is a kingsize with a sitting area. Bedroom five offers a kingsize and a single with another sitting area.
You’ve two single beds in bedroom six, while bedroom seven offers a double. Bedroom eight gives you two sets of bunks, perfect for juvenile high jinks, and bedroom nine has another bunk. Bedroom ten offers a kingsize bed and high up on the second floor, bedroom 11 comes with a kingsize and two singles and bedroom 12 is a double.
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Zips, trips and spas
Get your buckets and spades ready for a seven-mile beach, plus mini-golf, amusement arcades, oceanarium and 250-metre zip wire down to the pier. Meet all that’s cute and cuddly at Farmer Palmer’s Farm Park. Take a day trip to Guernsey on the Condor. Take home cask ales from Sandbanks Brewery. Or just take it easy at Arcadia Spa.
