Golf, events and bags of nostalgia at Newport’s Celtic Manor
There’s something very nostalgic about Celtic Manor. Located a few minutes down the M4 from Newport town centre, it manages to feel entirely remote, an imposing stone building nestled within some 2,000 acres of grounds.
Opened in 1982 by Welsh tech tycoon Sir Terry Matthews, once the richest man in the country, there’s something about Celtic Manor that brings to mind childhood holidays, from the smell of chlorine drifting from the vast pool and spa to the distant sound of lounge singers that reverberates through the lobby after sunset. The vibe feels more like a mainland European resort than a British hotel, the kind of place you could check in on a Friday and suddenly realise it’s somehow Tuesday afternoon and you haven’t left the complex.
This is partly because it’s unfathomably vast. I do not believe a single human could memorise every nook and cranny of this sprawling estate, which comprises a gigantic main resort, an adjoining “country house hotel” (accessible from the main building through a warren of subterranean corridors), a selection of Hunters’ Lodges, and various outbuildings including the Twenty Ten Clubhouse a five minute golf buggy ride away.
There are nods to the hotel’s Welsh heritage everywhere you look, not least the huge wooden dragons coiled around the pillars in the lobby. Paired with the wide open space and penchant for retro carpets, it brings to mind the Overlook Hotel (which, remember, was lovely until all the ghosts showed up).
It’s the kind of place I would have gone wild for as a kid, whether I was hopping from pool to pool in the health club (which sits under a giant mural of the night sky) or scaling the treeline at the Forest Nets jungle jim. Thankfully there are also places for grown-ups to retreat, be that reclined on a lounger beside the adult-only jacuzzi or propping up one of the five bars. One thing Celtic Manor is not short of is space.
Golf at Celtic Manor
A case in point: there are three – three! – Championship golf courses here, which can be booked for as little as £34. Celtic Manor hosted the Ryder Cup in 2010 and that legacy is celebrated in huge floor to ceiling photos that span its corridors. I’m not a golf man myself but there’s something satisfying about waking up to a view of the fairway, even if it was singed brown by the heatwave during my stay. I can imagine City parents gleefully dropping off the kids at Forest Nets before getting in a swift nine.
There are six restaurants, which is more restaurants than one could comfortably visit during a long weekend. The first evening I took a buggy to the Twenty Ten Clubhouse to check out the British fine dining venue Rafters, where you can expect all the classics: heritage tomato and mackerel and a Welsh spin on a tartiflette and chicken and pork belly. I had scallops followed by salmon with cockles; both very nice.
Another night I roamed the hallways for what felt like several days but was probably about 10 minutes until I found the pan-Asian restaurant Pad, a lively place that, again, serves exactly what you’d expect: dim sum and Korean chicken and nasi goreng and various curries. You can’t go wrong with pad thai, and indeed I did not go wrong with pad thai. If you can’t resist the lure of room service, there’s also a decent selection of dishes available to eat in your bed.
Speaking of rooms: they’re spacious, modern and comfortable. Most come with a balcony, too, which is ideal for enjoying a cold beer as the sun sets over the golf course.
It’s worth noting that Celtic Manor is also a popular events destination: not only does it nestle beside the vast ICC conference centre, it also has no less than 40 bookable spaces of its own, from intimate meeting rooms to entire ballrooms.
• Rooms from £115 – visit the website here