Most country houses of this caliber that accept paying guests have gone seriously upscale, turning themselves into luxury outposts for the seriously wealthy (I’m as big a fan of hedonism as the next girl, but those places can be oddly impersonal and you have to wonder, at the end of the trip, whether it was really worth $250 a night). Golden Grove is still a family home and a working estate. It is a B and B in the finest British tradition. Those rooms just happen to be in a rather remarkable Elizabethan mansion.
You enter through a massive, studded oak door to find yourself in a stone-flagged hall with a massive fireplace and 16th century furniture. You expect someone with a cape, breeches, and sword to greet you; instead you’ll get one of the two Mortimer-Steele brothers or their wives, who run the estate together. They have the knack of delivering warm, but unobtrusive hospitality and have a delightfully traditional British aura that’s all too rare in the country these days.
We saw two of the three bedrooms on offer. They both featured plenty of period details like fireplaces, decorative plaster work, crooked walls, and leaded windows. The furniture is comfortable, the beds cozy, and the views exquisite; there isn’t a sign of the 20th century in sight.
You can eat here, and we found the first meal so fantastic we cancelled dinner reservations to stay in another night. You’ll be served at a long, refectory-style table in a dining room with large windows overlooking the sweeping lawns and a neo-Jacobean fireplace adding decorative flare.
Before and after dinner you can lounge in the sitting room in front of a roaring fire. There’s an honor bar here where you can pour what you like and keep track of it on a tablet as you go. There’s a television and stereo here, plus piles of interesting books and magazines. Because there are so few rooms, you stand an excellent chance of having the room to yourself.
Golden Grove is a massive estate and you’ll find plenty of acres to roam. The formal gardens falling away from the house in terraces are from the early 20th century and worthy of any sightseer’s attention. If you notice similarities to the famous gardens at Bodnant, you’re right. The same family owned both properties for a time and deployed their garden designers in both places. Above the house the formal gardens give way to woodland; plenty of paths offer rambling opportunities here as well.
The house feels like it’s in the middle of nowhere, but you can work your way onto a main road in 10 minutes and be in Conwy in 30 or 40 minutes. Thus, you can indulge in splendid isolation, while still being within an easy day trip of most of North Wales’ major tourist attractions.