Some of you might think I’m talking about the new “take that” album, you would however, be mistaken! I actually want to bring your attention to our newly refurbished bedrooms at the Beech Hill Hotel on Lake Windermere!

We’ve completed a number of rooms being done under the current refurbishment programme, all of which look amazing! These rooms all have fantastic lake views, now though, they have all that and more, much more! Designer wallpapers and fabrics, state of the art bathrooms, plasma screen televisions, all you need to bring is, well yourself!

We’ve managed to source a local building firm, “Vickerstown interiors” headed by owner, Russell Spencely. These guy’s are not only great tradesmen, but also have a real eye for detail. Nothing but perfection will do, not the usual builders then! The firm specialise in interior design, and I really think it shows in the finished rooms. Check out the rooms by following the link on our website, see the “Select room” images. You can also see a selection of pictures on our facebook page.

I’ve had the pleasure of showing the finished rooms to guests staying with us and the feedback is fantastic, in fact people are already booking them for next summer!

This is the first phase of work planned over the coming winter months, we will have completed twelve rooms by March 2012. The second stage is planned to commence next October with a further twelve bedrooms being completed the following March.

Now that really is progress!

Jonathan Allan

General Manager

I know it’s the Lake District, but believe it or not we can have beautiful summers! If you’ve read the last blog from our Chef, you’ll know we have launched a rather tasty “summer” terrace menu here at the Beech Hill Hotel. We are also thinking about an evening barbeque menu that we will run mainly on Friday and Saturday nights during the summer. I know we’ll need the weather on our side but honestly, we do have some great days (and nights!)

The terrace is the perfect place for this because it’s in full sun right through the afternoon and stays in the sun until it goes down, sometimes as late as 10 o’clock! Plenty of time then to kick back with a cocktail and something fresh off the Barbie!

Check us out on facebook where you’ll see that some of you have already told us about some of your favourite dishes of all time! Our chef has seen some really unusual ones and it’s great to see the different combinations people put together!

We’d love to hear what it is you enjoy most when its cooked on the BBQ, personally, I don’t think you can go to far wrong with line caught sea bass, cooked with fresh herbs, a wedge of lemon and just a little butter, put everything in a simple foil parcel and wait for perfection! I think I’ve just decided what’s for dinner this evening!

So follow us on facebook, leave us as many ideas as you like and give your idea of the “perfect” Barbeque! You never know, you could end up reading someone’s favourite dish and cooking it yourself, enjoy!

Jonathan Allan

General Manager

I’m thrilled to announce our luxury holiday home “High Biggin”  has just received a fantastic 5 star gold award from Visit Britain! This confirms the quality of this outstanding property, and allows me to relax in the knowledge that all the hard work was worth while!

I was proud to show the inspectors around the house and gardens, I obviously showed them the guest book, every comment left was wonderful. More importantly for me, they all finished with “10/10 – we can’t wait to come back”. It means a lot when guests feel as though they have found somewhere that’s perfect for their family holiday.

Visit Britain has a great reputation for assuring quality, there inspector’s certainly put the properties through there paces! That’s no bad thing and as a customer it gives peace of mind, I know as someone who takes the family away on self catering holidays occasionally, it’s a sure fire way of understanding what you get for your money. I’m pleased to say that obviously they loved the house, its position over looking Lake Windermere and of course the privacy of its gardens.

It’s been a great first few months of letting, and for me, being able to offer something different, something special, where guests can incorporate the hospitality of the hotel with the privacy and luxury of the house has really and truly worked. Guests are enjoying the flexibility on offer, dine in or book a table in our award winning restaurant, we can even cater for you at the house! Personally, I would recommend the barbeque and the hot tub be used at least once, where else can you cook and eat dinner and relax with such breathtaking views?!

If you’re thinking about booking a self catering holiday in the UK, don’t book anything before considering “High Biggin” believe me, you won’t be disappointed! Don’t just take my word for it, ask Visit Britain, 5 star gold say’s it all!!

I look forward to welcoming those of you who book with us for the coming year! Oh, and don’t forget to visit our facebook page for details of how to win a free holiday, that’s one week in this stunning house with four bedrooms and five bathrooms without spending a penny!!

Jonathan Allan

General Manager

I just thought I’d bring you up to speed on a few things to look out for over the course of the coming year.

I know we all enjoy the garden for different reasons, here at the Beech Hill we’ve tried over time to keep things interesting and colourful. Some of you who have already stayed with us will know the grounds and that they are mainly terraced, stepping down all the way to the waters edge. Some of you may even remember I tried a herb garden a few years ago. It only took the local family of ducks about two minutes to discover it, then a further two days to eat every last bit of it!

During the quieter months of winter our gardener, Ashley, has been busy working through our plans to bring the garden back with even more colour than ever! We’ve carefully selected and planted nearly a thousand new bulbs in and around many of the borders.  As spring moves into summer we’re planning to introduce masses of summer bedding plants to really lift some of the less colourful corners of the garden.  On top of that we’ll have all the usual pots and hanging baskets.

We also have a seasonal “Tea Garden” which is literally on the waters edge, this is a treat not to be missed! Open during the summer months (weather permitting) we serve a selection of tea’s and coffee, soft drinks, and of course we always have a chilled bottle of Chardonnay in the fridge. What better way to spend a peaceful summer’s afternoon, believe me, if the suns out, you’ll be back tomorrow!

I just wanted to mention “High Biggin” in this blog. It’s relevant because it’s our luxury holiday home with a difference. It’s different in so many wonderful ways; however, in this case it’s obviously the garden I want to talk about. The garden is beautiful from every angle, but the best bit for me is the kitchen garden.

The idea here is simple, it allows you, the guest to make full use of something quite different. Our gardening team keep the kitchen garden “growing” through the seasons. If you’re booked to stay at the house for a week, you can feel free to help yourselves to all the goodies on offer. It could be rhubarb in the spring, strawberries in the summer or simply fresh herbs to accompany your barbeque! Just remember to close the gate behind you, the wild deer enjoy nothing more than a free dinner!

For those of you with a more intense interest of gardens, the Lake District offers a wealth of choice. From one the countries oldest Topiary gardens at the stunning Leven’s Hall, to the annual garden and flower show at Holker Hall. Visit our events calendar on line for more information, or feel free to ask!

Until next time, happy gardening!

Jonathan Allan

General Manager

As an update we just thought we’d show you the result of Ashley’s hard work on our garden:

Welcome to 2011! Interesting, I happened to stumble across the tail end of a rather dated episode of “Space 1999” the other day. Now I know that to some of you reading this your thinking “space what?!” but to those who know and love “old school” sci-fi you’ll know exactly what I talking about (I hope!)

The thing is, back in good old 1975 when the series was being put together, the theme seemed believable. We could easily imagine that a “Moon Base Alpha” as it was known, would be achievable and likely given the events of space exploration in the previous decade.  That’s how fast technology was moving (remember the triumph TR7!!) In reality, some 12 years after the year 1999, we’re no closer now than we were back then.

Now, I’ve been giving all this some thought recently, and I think I know what went wrong with the holiday home on the moon idea, social networks! That must be it, since the launch of the World Wide Web, all thought of design and build has moved in this direction. I guess it’s what we all really wanted after all! It’s almost impossible to think about going through a day, just 24 hours, without checking your mobile or i phone. Without “logging on” without checking out the best deals on line before splashing out on the latest i pad!! I guess we’re all happier with our feet firmly on the ground, and our eyes firmly glued to one type of screen or another!

All of this brings me neatly on to the Beech Hill Hotel’s new face book page. Only launched a few weeks ago, it’s already proving a useful and interesting place to be! We’ll be streaming loads of great pictures, stories and even the odd recipe or two, so go on, follow the link at the bottom of our home page and take a look!

Just to be clear on the “old school” sci-fi thing, unfortunately for my wife, I am a bit of a fan of anything sci-fi. Fortunately for my wife, we have two televisions!!

Until next time, best wishes

Jonathan.

General Manager

Our healthy, tasty new children’s menu!

Children are of course “little people” I myself own two of these “little people” so know a bit about what makes them function more efficiently!

I’ve spent a lot of time working with our Chef developing our children’s menu using my own experiences and that of my colleagues (who just happen to be parents as well!) I wanted something that really worked on all levels. Feeding my children, fresh (and organic where possible) food is hugely important to me and I like to try and continue this even when I’m away from home. I wanted to make sure here at the hotel that was possible for those of you with families.

This meant creating dishes that were not only healthy and well balanced, but dishes that children would actually enjoy choosing and of course eating! In fact some of the dishes are just as I make them for my own children at home. Of course here they are created by a team of award winning chef’s and ok, I don’t quite put fish that was landed a day or so ago in my fish pie, but you see what I mean! The point is we all want our kids to eat their meals without feeling like we’re torturing them at the same time!

In some hotels and restaurants the children’s menu seems to have been an after thought. You quite often get smaller portions of the main menu (where’s the thought in that!)  Or it’s simply everything and anything with fries! At the Beech Hill we’ve certainly tried to taken a different approach.

For me, this is as important as our main menu. We use fresh, local ingredients to produce a balanced menu that children of all ages can enjoy. Dishes are cooked to order and so it’s not simply transferring something from the freezer to the oven!

We have a copy of our children’s menu on our site so please do take the time to look over it and if you have any suggestions or comments I’d be more than happy to hear them.

Jonathan

General Manager

Well the new website has finally gone live! It’s been a while in the making but we all feel it’s been well worth the wait! Personally I think it’s great, I’m sure you agree. A lot of time, thought and effort has gone in to it and it’s been designed very much with you in mind.

It has so much more to offer, we’ve added more content, more fantastic pictures and some very tempting special offers! Please do take the time to look through the site, I particularly like the “events calendar”. This is a great tool and allows you to see all the exciting events happening both in the hotel and around the Lake District throughout the year. Not only that, click on the event your interested in and you can see all the information on it instantly! Then all you have to do is click to check availability, how easy is that!

I hope to be able to tell one or two interesting stories as the months go by as well as keeping you all informed on what’s going on in the area. We already have plans to refurbish some of our Classic bedrooms and we are currently decorating a number of corridors. Thanks again to those of you who have stayed with us recently for bearing with us whilst some of this work takes place. It really is great to see the improvements and the feedback from guests has been incredibly positive!

Don’t forget you can now follow us on twitter (where you’ll catch fantastic last minute deals) and keep an eye out for new posts on the Hotel’s Blog!

Jonathan Allan

General manger