Subscribe to trusted local news
In a time of both misinformation and too much information, quality journalism is more crucial than ever. By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.
- Subscription costs less than £1 a week with an annual plan.
Already a subscriber? Log in here.
22
Jun
Interview: the 20,000 opportunities to put Swinton Park on the map
In the modern era, running a large country house has become ever more financially challenging, and most landowners have had to find new ways to make their estate pay.
In our patch of Yorkshire, a popular solution has been to turn the place into a luxury hotel.
But in recent years, competition has become intense, and a ‘charms race’ between these country house hotels has seen the development – at great expense – of fine dining restaurants and spa facilities that would have made the gentry of yore gasp in disbelief.
One of these estates is Swinton Park near Masham. So what is it that sets the place apart from its equally well-appointed rivals?
The Stray Ferret put this question to its general manager, Paul Hunter, and he was quick to answer. He said:
It’s the family. For 25 years they’ve been here day in, day out, living down in the town and coming here every day to make it better. Not every estate has that.
Swinton Park was owned by the Cunliffe-Lister family from the 1880s, sold 90 years later, and then in 2000 bought back by its current owner, Mark Cunliffe-Lister – also known as the 4th Earl of Swinton – his mother Dame Susan, and his brother and sister.
After marrying Felicity – now the Countess of Swinton – they spent nine months converting the family seat into a hotel and opened the doors in March 2001.
Mr Hunter said:
They’re involved with every aspect of the business. They’ve split it quite well. Felicity looks after the leisure side of the business, and Mark has more to do with the rural side and everything apart from the hotel. And it works well.
And even when we don’t get it right, and the business isn’t as financially successful as maybe we’d want it to be, Mark and Felicity will still see that there is progress and opportunity to improve – and they’re willing to put money in to make Swinton a better place.
Samuel's is one of three restaurants at Swinton Park.
Glamping and cookery
He’s not joking. Over the years, they have invested huge amounts of time and effort in expanding and improving facilities. In 2003, they opened the cookery school; in 2006, the birds of prey centre took flight; and Bivouac glamping site launched in 2012.
In 2017, they invested £8 million in brand-new country club and spa facilities, and in 2019 they opened the permissive paths in the 200 acres of parkland to the public.
Just recently, they have invested £50,000 more in the cookery school, around a quarter of a million on refurbishing the bedrooms and bathrooms, half a million on new kitchens for Samuel’s restaurant, and more than £1 million on reroofing the castle.
The recent work sounds to have gone fairly smoothly, although the reroofing has been delayed, so the scaffolding is still in place.
Mr Hunter said:
It’s only supposed to be a 12-week programme, so it’s made things a bit tight. But I’ve been really pleased with the lack of disappointment from customers.
Naturally, you come to a beautiful place like Swinton and people will probably be a little bit disappointed to see scaffolding up. But we’ve had weddings here while it’s been up and everybody has understood why we’re doing it.
Swinton Park offers private dining in Adam's Folly.
He appears to take such disruptions in his stride. In fact, you get the sense that he prefers his castle with a bit of scaffolding on the side. Or at least, he likes a challenge.
He said:
I don’t like to be bored – I like to have a lot going on. So when the Swinton job came up, I thought, ‘You can’t get bored at Swinton!’.
Bigger than Manhattan
Originally from Willerby near Hull, he started work at Whitbread but wanted something “more glamorous”. He went on to run three hotels in Leicester Square and won an Acorn Award, which is given to the 30 brightest prospects under the age of 30 in hospitality.
Made redundant during the covid pandemic, he came back to Yorkshire and presided over the opening by Guesthouse Hotels of No 1 York. He started his current role last June.
He said:
I’ve had quite a successful career so far, and I’ve still got more to give, and a lot more to learn.
Being here, I have the opportunity to improve lots of things, whilst learning.
The new Pommery-sponsored croquet lawn.
If he was looking for the big league, he found it at Swinton Park: the estate covers 20,000 acres. He points out that it’s bigger than Manhattan, but actually it’s bigger than Manhattan and Monaco combined.
He said:
Those 20,000 acres mean there are 20,000 opportunities. We have so much going on that it’s difficult to put your finger on just one thing.
You can do all the things you can do in any other hotel around the world, but you can also shoot laser clays – or real ones – you can go on a duck flight, horseriding, cycling, golf, you can play croquet on our new Pommery [-sponsored] croquet lawn, which is another example of £20,000 of investment that we’ve made.
You can come and have a boardroom meeting, a conference, or a gala dinner – the list is endless. We have the space – what would you like to do? If it’s possible and legal and isn’t detrimental to the environment, we can do it. Let’s go for it – we'll be your partner in that.
Top chef Josh Barnes hosts the Chef's Table in the Cookery School four nights a week.
The environmental point is an important one at Swinton – the hotel has attained Gold standard in Green Tourism and received the AA Hospitality Sustainable Business Award. This week, it was named Hospitality Firm of the Year at the UK Green Business Awards in London.
The highlight of his first year at the helm, says Mr Hunter, is the improvement in the hotel’s performance. He's put the room rates up, but occupancy levels have remained stable, and revenue and conversion, guest feedback, team engagement and retention have all improved.
As for the next year, he said:
I’m really looking forward to welcoming more people here over the summer, and we really want to demonstrate how child-friendly we are. We’ve got kids’ activity plans for in the summer holidays, and there’s so much you can do here as a family.
More than anything, though, he wants to spread the word about Swinton and its “20,000 opportunities”. He said:
People across our part of the north do know us, but we need be better known further south – or is it further north?
Whichever it is, there’s an opportunity for us to be better known than we are – because we are pretty unique. We use the tagline ‘uniquely Swinton’, and it’s fitting, because there aren’t many places like us.
We need to put Swinton on the map. And that will come through doing more of what we’re doing: looking after our people, looking our guests, and driving revenue so we can reinvest in telling the Swinton story.
0