The Grove has a beach. Not a lake, not a decorative stretch of shingle, but actual sand, with a heated outdoor pool beside it, in the middle of the Hertfordshire countryside about forty minutes from central London.
That was the headline attraction for my daughter, who is one and a half, and it turned out to be the thing that shaped our entire stay. The five-star hotel, set across 300 acres of former Clarendon estate, has long had a reputation as a countryside playground for adults: spa, championship golf course, several restaurants, endless grounds. In summer it becomes something closer to a resort, thanks to the Walled Garden and Ralph’s Beach.
We arrived at around 3pm, deliberately giving ourselves time to settle in before dinner. Check-in was almost suspiciously efficient; within five minutes we had our room key and were on our way upstairs.
Our room, on the second floor, was huge. An enormous bed, a sofa, a desk, and still plenty of space left for the inevitable amount of stuff that accompanies travelling with a toddler. The bathroom was what really won me over: spacious, indulgent and built around a deep bathtub. I take baths very seriously so this earned The Grove some early points.
Bags droped in the room, we quickly headed to The Stables for a drink and a snack. Of all The Grove’s dining options, this is the most relaxed: an all-day brasserie overlooking the grounds, and exactly what we wanted after arriving.
The buffet to end all buffets at The Glasshouse
We had booked The Glasshouse, The Grove’s buffet restaurant, and calling it a buffet doesn’t prepare you for what follows. It has become a destination in its own right since since Grace Dent filmed there for the Channel 5 documentary that later reached a much larger audience on Netflix as Million Dollar Buffet.
There are live cooking stations everywhere: lobster, whole seafood display, pasta made in front of you, Asian dishes, Mediterranean food, Indian food, sushi, roasts, desserts. Every possible craving competing for your attention at once. The selection shifts with the seasons, but the principle stays the same, you move from station to station while chefs cook and finish plates in front of you.
I have a love-hate relationship with a very good buffet. I love the choice; I hate the total lack of restraint it brings out in me. Suddenly I need lobster, pasta and several unrelated Asian dishes on the same plate, because apparently choosing is no longer an option. Then, inevitably, I regret my appoach halfway through, realising I made a complete mess of it. Still worth it though.
The Glasshouse was one of the highlights of our stay. It’s extravagant without being stuffy and, when you’re eating with a toddler, there is always something everyone will eat.
After a very good night’s sleep, we returned for breakfast, another enormous spread before heading off to Theia’s undisputed highlight of the trip.
Yes, The Grove has a beach
Ralph’s Beach sits inside The Grove’s Walled Garden and is one of those things that sounds slightly odd until you see it. There’s sand, daybeds, a bar and a heated outdoor pool, plus dedicated areas for children, an arts and crafts tent and a games zone. They have essentially built a small summer resort behind a set of Georgian walls.
And it works. The pool was full of families and young children when we visited, so despite being at a five-star hotel, there was none of that low-level anxiety about your toddler making too much noise or daring to splash somebody. My daughter would happily have spent the entire day in the water. Getting her out proved much harder than getting her in.
One practical piece of advice for anyone visiting with a toddler: bring their swimming costume. We forgot Theia’s, assuming we’d pick one up at the hotel, only to find there weren’t any available to buy.
Worth knowing before you plan around it: the Walled Garden, and therefore Ralph’s Beach, is open only to hotel residents, Walled Garden members and guests booked onto selected spa days. It’s also seasonal, as is the Everyman cinema that runs in the garden across high summer.
Once we eventually prised Theia away from the water, the afternoon slowed right down. We ate, then spent some time in the hotel’s Lounges with a drink. After the noise of the pool they felt like an oasis of calm: deep sofas, beautiful interiors and the sort of atmosphere that makes you want to stay put far longer than planned.
Dinner at Madhu’s
Our second evening took us to Madhu’s at The Grove, the hotel’s Indian fine dining restaurant in the Mansion.
The setting is more glamorous and more grown up than the previous night’s buffet, with beautifully presented food and attentive service. Madhu’s traces its heritage back to Punjab by way of Nairobi and Southall, and the East African influence shows up across the menu in dishes like mogo chips. The dining rooms, meanwhile, take their cue from New Delhi’s Lodi Gardens. It’s a good-looking restaurant with a genuinely interesting story behind it, and after two very different dinners I couldn’t choose which I preferred.
By the time checkout came round the next morning, none of us were keen to leave, so we stayed on to make the most of the grounds.
With so much open space, children can run around and explore rather than spending a whole hotel stay being told not to touch things. For parents of toddlers, that makes an enormous difference. You can sit with a coffee while they burn off energy on the lawn, instead of trying to contain them in an environment built entirely for adults.s.
What we didn’t get round to
There’s far more here than we could fit into two nights. We never made it to Sequoia, the hotel’s spa, because Theia had firm opinions about how our time should be spent and the heated pool won every vote. It looks beautiful, and it’s on the list for a return trip without a toddler in tow.
The Grove also has Anouska’s Kids’ Club, cycling and Asher’s Woodland Trails, tennis courts, and a summer programme that includes Everyman screenings in the Walled Garden. The reworked Walled Garden is home to Jemima’s Kitchen Garden alongside Ralph’s Beach. Golfers now have The Kingdom at The Grove, an 8.5-acre TaylorMade fitting facility that opened this year and is the brand’s first outside the United States, though this held less sway over me than the bathtub.
The verdict
The Grove is a proper luxury hotel that doesn’t make having children with you feel like a compromise. Beautiful, spacious rooms, excellent restaurants, peaceful lounges and five-star service, alongside a pool full of toddlers, acres of grass and a sandy beach where nobody blinks when your child decides that getting out of the water is the greatest injustice ever committed against them.
It isn’t cheap, and it’s worth being clear eyed about what you’re paying for. A summer stay and a winter stay are close to two different hotels: take away Ralph’s Beach, the outdoor pool and the cinema, and a lot of what makes The Grove such a good bet with small children goes with them. Several of the best bits also sit outside the room rate, from spa treatments to cabana hire to the cinema and dining packages. If you’re booking specifically for a toddler friendly weekend, book in season and budget beyond the nightly rate.
The Grove is in Chandler’s Cross, Hertfordshire. At the time of writing, one-night stays in a West Wing Classic Room start from £485 on a B&B basis. Ralph’s Beach and the Everyman screenings are seasonal, so check dates and availability before booking.
You can book your stay at thegrove.co.uk
