If you eat a flapjack when you know you shouldn’t and then sit in a mildly agitating train for about six hours, you – if you are me – are bound to end up in trouble. When it comes to matters of the mouth and what I put in it, I’m a sensitive soul. So by the time I reached Kings Cross, I was feeling decidedly queasy. And cranky!
Worse still I’m in the Southeast. I have an allergy to that part of the world not dissimilar to sugary flapjacks. It makes me cranky. Or at least it used to. But I was prepared to give it another go.
As soon as I reached London, I jumped on another train heading back north. No, I hadn’t bottled it – it was only going as far as Watford Junction. I remember getting mixed up with Watford Junction and Watford Gap back in the days when I didn’t have money for trains and hitched my way up and down Britain or even better around the Continent. Watford Gap was the hitch-hikers gateway to the North. Watford Gap – not Watford Junction.
This time I picked the right Watford and was heading for a bourgeois weekend at The Grove, London’s grooviest 5-star country estate – not, I might add, how I envisaged things turning out back in my hitch-hiking days.
The Grove, after several decades on the demolition hit list, came back on the scene in the 1990s, a country house saved from rot and ruin having once played host to Queen Victoria and various prime shakers of the day. Its house parties by all accounts were legendary. Now it is the port-of-choice for the likes of Kylie and Madge when they’re in town or Hollywood A-listers who stay for prolonged periods whilst working at nearby Warner Bros Studios.
And me, of course. This was my second visit, the first not long after Tiger Woods tamed The Grove’s then juvenile golf track during the 2006 World Golf Championship. Yes, the Grove has a golf course and a rather fine one at that. But more on that in a minute – first I wandered around the Mansion, the original red brick pile at the heart of The Grove to check if its funky lounges were still intact. And they were; a celebration of Bohemian bon-vivant if ever there was one. The Grove’s interior style is eclectic and eccentric. It gives you little cerebral thrills as you explore and clap your eyes on something else new and avant-garde. As a weekend retreat for fashion-conscious Londoners and an inspiring meeting-place for corporate creatives, The Grove surely works a charm. A film projected on a corridor wall shows a scene of a naked man walking off into the undergrowth. Well, why not – it’s playful; irreverent! And that’s just the interiors.
The gardens are equally inspiring in a Zen sort of way; trippy topiary and slight statuettes, sunken glades, meditative water features and floral walkways. Whoever dreamed all this up was either mad or a genius. I’ll go with the latter. The Walled Garden is my favourite; an outdoor pool. And a beach! Yup! A white, sandy beach has been shipped in and surrounded with sun-bleached beach huts and faded deck chairs. Slap on the factor 50 and call for a Mojito. This place on the edge of London is on the edge of genius.
There were one or two niggles (I’d worry about myself if there weren’t). My room in the far-flung, modern west wing was rather bland compared to the Mansion’s magnificent boudoirs. And wifi here in the outer-reaches was more like why-bother. The Glasshouse Restaurant was altogether too busy for my delicate constitution, the waiters buff Hungarian bodybuilders (one for the ladies perhaps) and the buffet not quite worth the sizeable dent it put on my credit card. But after a fine night’s sleep, things were looking up and I was ready to hit the golf course.
I’d played The Grove back in 2007 when Tiger was but a lad and long before his marital, knee and back downfall. I hadn’t quite played to his standard but was willing to have another try. The Grove is pure Pay & Play with a price tag not far off Trump proportions – £165 Monday to Wednesday and £185 the rest of the week. But I have to say it is one of the finest parkland courses I’ve ever encountered. The condition is impeccable. Designed by Kyle Phillips of Kingsbarns, Dundonald and Yas Links fame, it’s a veritable showcase of dazzlingly superb golf holes. I’d go as far as to say it’s the best parkland course in the UK – certainly the best conditioned. Cut five more holes around those delicious greens and you could have a pleasant but slightly surrealistic game of table billiards.
However, the real deal sealer for me was the service. Let’s put it this way; some of the staff I encountered on my first visit seven years ago are still here. They just can’t get rid of them, it seems. And that, I believe, is a very good thing. These folks believe in what they are doing and do it to the very best of their ability. As an instance, the Golf Guest Services manager, Billy Grant, from Fochabers, has been working at The Grove for eight years. And he does his thing extremely well as do the rest of the staff.
The golf element is run by Troon Golf, the American management company who specialise in high-end operations like The Grove, injecting the full-on American service ethos. Love it or loathe it, it works – even here in reluctant old Blighty.
So that was The Grove and a very groovy two days it was. But my trip down south didn’t end there. The Grove’s sister hotel, The Athenaeum, set in the heart of London’s swanky Mayfair district is offering a second-centre stay to allow us golfing Scots or anyone else who cares to partake a chance to take in the highlights of The Grove along with the delights of the Big Smoke. Go for a birl on the London Eye, take in a West End production, a pre or post dinner. The Grove and Athenaeum is offering a package for golfers or anyone for that matter coming from or going to Scotland for this year’s star golf event at Gleneagles – but there’s no reason why we can’t inveigle ourselves and have a night or two soaking in all this sophistication. A word of advice if you do; have a word with Gordon, the concierge at the Athenaeum. He’s a master of his art and will keep you right on all things you need to know to make your visit zing.
- For further information on The Grove and The Athenaeum and their offers visit www.thegrove.co.uk. David travelled to London with East Coast trains. Lowest advance fares are always found online at www.eastcoast.co.uk and you can check times and fares on 08457 225225.