Hotel review: Family break at the Cornwall Hotel, Spa and Estate

Family bliss: Magic moments feeding the swans at Pentewan


It would be so easy to fall out of love with England, but for a few moments in the year. Our desperation to enjoy a ‘staycation’ so often ends up in soggy frustration and, never one for crowds, I tend to avoid overpopulated ‘escapes’. However, I am thrilled to discover that Cornwall does still have places where moments of English family holidays waft about in the air waiting to be shared by parents and children.
When you have only four days for a family break, everything has to be spot-on. So here is my prescription. Pack up the car.

The newly-opened Cornwall Hotel, Spa and Estate seems to offer the best of everything; choose one of its woodland homes and you can still give your kids food on demand like beans on toast, they can play safely outside with other kids in the warmth of the evenings while you watch with a glass of wine from the balcony, but then you also have a spa and beautiful restaurants on your doorstep.

Any family with young children needs activity if the parents are to get to nirvana in the evening, the point when all children are deeply asleep. I have long since lost the instructions for fitting the bike rack to the car so we couldn’t fit all our bikes in, but did manage the children’s – well worth it just for playing outside the woodland home.

For anyone without their two wheels, Pentewan Valley Cycle Hire delivers to the hotel. This means you can take full advantage of the off-road cycle path running to Pentewan bay, just under an hour’s ride for us with the youngest cyclist aged six.

Cycling along this flat path through woodland and farmland by streams, and even through a small ford, we chat and laugh all the way to the beach, no one gets told off and there are no arguments – a big family moment now trapped in our memory.

Pentewan bay is a wide, sandy beach. It’s quite windy so great for kite-flying, canoeing, kayaking and body-boarding. We unpack a picnic.

Then we head inland again on the cycle path and the boys spend ages paddling in a river while I settle in the sunshine. The next day was reserved for The Lost Gardens of Heligan. It is here that I catch another of those moments, wandering up the sunken lane, banks of wild flowers on either side, my children running and singing in front of me. I can almost taste the sunshine of my own childhood.

We discover a bumblebee nest in the bank and have time to watch which flowers they are visiting and how often they come and go from the nest. Then the children discover the wildlife revealed by cameras and monitors in Horsemoor Hide.

Back at the hotel, the sliding doors of the infinity pool fold right back, bringing the outside in, and I swim alongside the palms and purple alliums, the kind of planting you find only in Cornwall. Those with older children take advantage of the sun terrace and smoothies. I prevent mine from drowning each other, calm in the knowledge that each moment is a step towards their exhaustion and a massage in the spa is only a step away across the old courtyard.

My children are often embarrassing. When my extrovert three-year-old loudly demonstrates his hip-gyrating Lady Gaga impression in front of a restaurant full of people, it is received with smiles and laughter from the staff. We get the benefit of a snooty hotel without the snoot.

On the terrace we are recommended ‘The Cornwall’ cocktail, made with Cornish apple brandy and Camel Valley fizz and served with a Falmouth oyster, a drink as mellow as the dancing flies in the setting sun. There is also, specially created for the hotel, the rather refreshing Kernewek-eva which translates as ‘the Cornish Drink’. We try both, while we hotly debate what to do on our last day: the Eden Project, the coast walk, the sandy cove of Porthpean or another cycle ride. Balmy of mind, we head for local scallops and lobster, the children eat everything and our relaxed evening is punctuated only by their snoring. The captured moments are fast blurring into one.


Travel facts

The Cornwall Hotel, Spa and Estate (01726 87 40 50, www.thecornwall.com) offers double rooms from £109 including breakfast.

For information on The Lost Gardens of Heligan visit www.heligan.com.

source: dailymail