A country house hotel with an amazing fitness centre. Fab old country house down a long driveway. Fresh flowers in the entrance hall and friendly staff.
Big rooms with giant beds and nice cotton bedlinen. And smart flatscreen TVs with integral DVD player. But you will need to bring/buy your own as the selection downstairs is dire. Nice reading room too, but again, would advise own books, unless you are keen to read musty mid-century non-classics. Breakfast was good (though served only between 7-9am in the week).
What really made this place for us was the fitness facilities. Genuinely friendly staff meant a really great atmosphere. Good gym (not huge, but decent range of equipment- soon to be upgraded and enlarged apparently). Fantastic big 20m pool open until 9pm and lit sympathetically. Large sauna and steam room.
And, as well as grass tennis courts they have real tennis courts. Very odd, but the two that they have at Prested Hall represent about 1/40th of the world's total. The current no. 2 and no. 8 play there and you can bag a free lesson!
We paid £184 for two nights mid-week which seemed really reasonable.
Prested Hall, Feering, Colchester, Essex CO5 9EE
01376 573300
www.prested.co.uk
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