Prested Hall

Prested Chase, Feering, Nr Cochester, Essex, CO5 9EE
Telephone: 01376 573399
Fax: 0870 706 1196
English Tourism Council 4 Stars

E-mail Establishment Prested Hall, Feering, Essex, Image

Enjoy a few days at Prested Hall - only an hour from London.

Licened for civil wedding ceremonies.... now also with its 20m indoor pool and sauna

Prested, whose site is mentioned in the Doomsday Book, is a fine, part-moated Hall, 15th Century in origin, set in its own 80 acres of park and woodland - an oasis of tranquility - on the outskirts of the village of Feering, 9 miles south of Colchester.The atmosphere at Prested is relaxed but efficient. We hope you will find our staff friendly and helpful, your accommodation and the setting peaceful.

We have 10 en-suite bedrooms, and we've been given Four Diamonds by the English Tourism Council.The rooms can be booked individually or by a group. You might want to come while working temporarily in the area, or for a bit of a break - but only mid-week as all week-ends are taken by wedding parties. With a new chef setting up shop here and at the club, we hope soon to be offering full evening meals, for those staying for Bed and Breakfast.

We are situated midway between Colchester and Chelmsford, with direct access off the A12 southbound slip road into Kelvedon and Feering. From the south proceed through Kelvedon, and after Feering, we're well sign-posted, veering off to the right just before the road re-joins the by-pass.Stansted airport is not far away. We could arrange to collect you if coming from abroad, and we can rent you a car, sometimes for as little as £30 per day.

Four Diamond Guest Accommodation
Whether you are coming to the area on business, or need a pampering break, we'll look after you and make you feel at home.

Our nightly B and B room rates are mostly £65 double or twin and £45 single to include a generous Continental breakfast.
Two extra-splendid rooms are £77 double and one has a child's bed for £15 extra (if used). Come for four nights Monday-Friday, or Sunday to Thursday, and we only charge you for three (eg £135 single).
If these rates sound especially reasonable, we'd have to point out that while the sports club building works continue, and lorries are sometimes coming down the drive, there are some pot-holes here and there, and a bit of general untidiness to contend with around the club area (but the bed-rooms are nevertheless utterly peaceful).
All rooms have en-suite facilities; some with baths, some with showers, some with both. If specifically a shower or a bath is important to you, please say so and we'll choose your room number accordingly.

Prested Hall, Feering, Essex, Dinnng Area

Breakfast is Continental and served in the conservatory. Supper is sometimes available - by arrangement - but always on Tuesdays at the club.
The adjacent villages of Feering and Kelvedon have several much-enjoyed pubs for evening meals as well as a good Indian restaurant.

A few miles away are a couple of really excellent and popular restaurants, The Barn in Marks Tey and Baumann's in Coggeshall.

If you want to really get away from it all, come by train and we'll meet you at Kelvedon station (on the Ipswich/Colchester line from Liverpool Street). But be warned, if you're thinking of walking to and from the pubs and/or station, our tree-lined avenue is itself nearly half a mile long. It's yet further into the village, and a bit more still to the station.

Smoking is forbidden anywhere on the premises.

Special 2-night offers:

We have a treatment centre in the grounds, and in the winter we can sometimes offer a special away-break: come for Saturday night and either Friday night or Sunday night and we give you: for £65 pp (couple) or £85 single, 2 nights B and B, a welcoming bottle of wine, and one hour's massage (aromatherapy or traditional Swedish) in total - which can be taken as half an hour each for a couple or a whole hour for one of you; or it would be one full hour if you are on your own. Plus free use of the tennis courts and - subject to the manager's approval - the gym.Every Saturday is taken by weddings so we can only offer this deal mid-week (or starting on a Sunday).

Prested is the perfect venue for a wedding, a house party, a family celebration, or a corporate function. For such a special occasion, we can principally offer a pretty 80'x40' traditional marquee (summer only), together with some fine old reception rooms. The grounds and various rooms and covered spaces - also another much larger marquee - are available for events such as antique fairs, shows etc. We can offer several thousand square feet of under-cover space, and 50 good acres of grass-land.

Make Diary Notes Now:

Wedding Fair here Sunday October 5th
European Real Tennis Championships November 6-10th

In the grounds of Prested Hall we have built a Real Tennis centre, featuring the only pair of courts to have been built in the 20th Century (and the first in Essex since the days of Henry VIII). These courts were opened in 1999 and already enjoy considerable local and national following. We also have three Astro lawn tennis courts.

Our gym is also now open, with modern high quality equipment - 11 resistance and 8 CV machines together with some light weights.

Coaching "Week-Ends"

The price of success with our weddings business in the Hall is that we cannot now offer week-ends. However, we can and will offer coaching trips and the prices remain the same:For the modest sum of £70 per single person (or £105 for two sharing a room) we offer two days of lessons plus one night's B and B. Or make a longer trip of it - 3 days' lessons and 2 nights B and B for £110 for one or £140 for two (sharing a room). We can make arrangements most weeks Monday-Friday (sometimes to include the Friday night). Bring some non-sporty friends and let them get to know East Anglia and perhaps be pampered in our Therapy Centre.

Gym

Our gym is not of the noisy, posy, intimidating variety. It's simply a low key, but very well equipped, fitness centre with friendly caring efficient staff.

We have 9 CV machines comprising of

2 treadmills
Johnson bikes
a Concept 2 rower
a Precor cross-trainer
a Stepper
and 11 sophisticated fixed weights (resistance) machines
a range of moderate free-weights

Our staff are constantly looking for ways to help improve your time here and achieve the results you're looking for. You'll be given an initial induction, to ensure you are confident and comfortable with the machines, and thereafter they will give you regular check-ups and motivational sessions.

The gym extension is now ready but is for the moment being used as the classes studio. In due course the actual studio, of about 100 square metres, will be finsihed and the gym extended with additional equipment.

Current classes include:
Legs Bums 'n' Tums, Aqua Aerobics, Max Tone, Hatha Yoga, Yoga for Pregnancy, and Pilates and there's a Mums and Toddlers session Thursdays in the pool.We also run a Ladies Morning (Tuesdays) and an Over-50s session Wednesday afternoons, each of whihc being extremely popular.

Weddings, parties conferences and meetings at Prested Hall

licensed for civil marriages........ so make a diary note now:

Wedding Fair Here!
For your corporate event, wedding, conference etc we have a number of rooms and possible venues for all sorts of functions.For weddings, or smart summer functions, we have (from May-September) a pretty, 25mx12m metre (80x40') traditional-styled pole tent on the lawns by the bridge over the moat - ideal for wedding photos. This is fitted with chandeliers, can seat up to about 170 people, and comes with large round tables, a bar and dance floor.For indoor parties the Hall boasts a lovely dining room seating up to about 35, but you can host many more if you use the big conservatory off it. There's also a former family ball-room which is used for conferences and dinner parties for slightly larger groups.

We hold a Civil Weddings License and can now offer the complete service. 20 of your friends can stay overnight and you have the whole place exclusively. We could possibly organise a mid-week marriage without your taking all the rooms, indeed, most days apart from Saturdays we can do a highly affordable, modest two-hour booking to include the use of the Ceremony room and space and time for a quick small reception. Maybe a suitable arrangement for a vow-repeating type of event...?

For groups of about 250-400 we have a huge marquee (30 x 16 metres) where you can make as much noise as you like with a gig, live band and no neighbours.For most functions here you can either use our regular caterers, or bring in your own (subject to some reasonable requirements on our part.)Just call us, arrange a visit, tell us what you want, and you'll be very pleased how moderate our quotes will be.

Prested Hall, Feering, Essex, Wedding Dinning Area

Our typical summer 24 hour wedding package (less catering) includes:

the use of the traditional 80x40' pole-tent marquee
use of our licensed Civil Ceremony room
exclusive use of the entire Hall, including all 10 bedrooms on a B and B basis
the services of a personal wedding co-ordinator available to assist throughout the period from booking onwards, as well as on the day
a Duty Manager on the day

An all-inclusive guide price for this, for Saturdays, Sundays and Bank Holidays from May - September, for 2004, is about £3400.
At other times these prices are radically reduced.
Although we are getting very full for 2004, and are indeed taking bookings for 2005, Jill the Functions Manager might have her arm twisted for a wedding or conference during January/February 2004.... letting the price down possibly to as little as £1700 for our entire package (as above but less the winter-resting marquee).

The Prested Pool

For the latest country-and world-wide Real Tennis news please visit the new T and RA sanctioned sitewww.realtennisonline.com

The pool measures 20m x 12m and is level depth at 4'6" (1.35m). The water is set at 29 C and the air 30 C(when the air temperature outside is 35 the air conditioning is struggling!)

Why not visit the Prested Hall home page?