With the European golf travel market now valued at over $8bn, accounting for roughly 30% of global golf tourism, an independent hotel in the west of England has achieved a remarkable feat by being listed among the top 100 luxury golf resorts in Europe.
The family-run Tewkesbury Park hotel, golf & wellness resort has been ranked in the prestigious new Top 100 Luxe Resorts Europe list ahead of world-famous golf travel destinations such as La Manga in Spain, Celtic Manor in Wales and The Belfry in England. The rankings were published by Golf World, which has been publishing ranking lists of golf courses and resorts since 1982.
The 93-bedroom resort is also ranked ahead of world-famous golf resorts such as Trump Turnberry in Scotland, Le Touquet in France, and Praia D’El Rey in Portugal for the quality of its accommodation, with its nine ultra-luxurious Historic Suites rated amongst the finest in the UK.
Golf World praised Tewkesbury Park for its “exceptionally good bedrooms, like five-star good.” In previous articles it has said: “The Tewkesbury Park hotel is fabulous, and it has improved beyond recognition in recent times to become the complete golf resort. It really is a class act.”
Located near to the 12th century Tewkesbury Abbey, on a historic 200-acre War of The Roses battlefield site with countryside views of the distant Welsh Mountains, the Malvern Hills, the Severn Valley and the Cotswolds, Tewkesbury Park does not offer a giant stately home or a dramatic seascape like many others on the Top 100 Luxe Resorts Europe list.
So why does it now stand alongside the mega-budget Continental, Scottish and Irish golf resorts?
After the McIntosh family took the hotel and golf course under independent ownership in 2014, they commenced an extensive £7m improvement programme, including an impressive new conference, wedding and events venue. Tewkesbury Park unveiled a spectacular facelift in 2018, and later that year it was named Best UK & Ireland Hotel for Weddings, Parties and Special Occasions by the prestigious Condé Nast Johansens independent travel guide.
The same organisation also named Tewkesbury Park as Best UK & Ireland Hotel for Meetings and Conferences in 2023.
In the following year Tewkesbury Park was named among the Top 100 British Hotels of any kind by The Sunday Times. The only other golf resorts included were Gleneagles, Rockliffe Hall and The Roxburghe.
Further post-COVID investment of £2.5m has seen Tewkesbury Park add:
- An all-new sustainable resort heating & power plant system
- Private patios to all ground-floor rooms, giving each guest a private outdoor space
- New greenkeeping machinery
- Six dog-friendly rooms, joining one of the fastest-growing trends in UK hotels
- New hot tub and sun deck facilities
- New air conditioning for guest rooms
As a result, the awards keep flowing including the naming of the hotel’s Mint restaurant, run by Executive Chef Anuj Thakur, as Restaurant of the Year in the 2025 Cotswold Life Food & Drink Awards. Its ‘Tasting Menu’ which changes with the seasons is especially notable.
Talking about the new Golf World award Claire White, Commercial Director and member of the family which owns Tewkesbury Park, said: “There’s a sense of shared leadership here, with many of the managers who we recruited after the takeover still here years later. It is a truly lovely place both to stay and to work, so all of us are of course exceptionally proud to be named alongside Europe’s most famous luxury golf resorts.
“We are unique in that list, as we are independent, family-run and have less than 100 rooms. Staying at Tewkesbury Park isn’t intimidatingly expensive, and the luxury we provide is good value, with countless small touches to remind you that we are not part of a big corporate chain. From the start we invested heavily in improving the quality of our golf, rooms and wellness facilities, and I think we have pitched our affordable luxury mix of great facilities in a classic English countryside setting just about perfectly.”
Although the hotel and its amenities have been primary drivers of Tewkesbury Park’s new-found fame, its 6,554 yard Par 72 golf course is also recognised as one of the best-conditioned layouts in the West of England.
“I have been here for eight years, and in summer 2026 our golf course is as good as I have ever seen it” said Course Manager, Paul Hathaway. “The greens are immaculate, and the fairways are well-defined after plenty of growth. We have invested heavily both in new course-management equipment and in a new irrigation system, and the results are visible to everyone who plays here.
“As a golf course we are now playable 12 months a year, which is vital if we want to retain our top 100 ranking. The whole team are enormously proud to be so highly ranked by Golf World in Europe, and we will continue to invest to raise our standards still further.”
Hotel Manager Sam Bond was working at Tewkesbury Park before the McIntosh family took over. She said: “Having worked in many different departments here over the last 14 years, I’m living proof that we invest so well in our people, and promote from within. We ‘get’ hospitality, and we have developed many young people, setting them up for great careers.
“It’s the small details which I love most of all at Tewkesbury Park: the doggy doorstops in our suites; the locally sourced toiletries in our bathrooms; and the quirky individual touches on our menus. Much of what we provide is bespoke, with a sense of fun, and our guests always talk about the genuine warmth they feel when they stay here.”
The golf course is named The Deerpark in tribute to a time when, over 800 years ago, the land was stocked with hundreds of deer. The site on which The Deerpark golf course now sits had been turned into agricultural land by 1770, when John and Mary Wall built the manor house which now acts as the hotel, wellness and spa complex at the heart of the resort.
“We don’t cut corners,” said Claire White. “If we cannot offer quality in every single aspect, we don’t do it, so when you come to Tewkesbury Park you will see that we have thought of almost everything – but there is, of course, always room to improve! We never stop thinking about how we can make ourselves better.”
Tewkesbury Park lies just ten minutes from Junction 9 of the M5 motorway, convenient for Bristol, Birmingham and Oxford, under two hours from London Heathrow Airport. Situated just south west of the historic town of Tewkesbury, it is under half an hour from Cheltenham, and is the ideal gateway for the many beauty spots of The Cotswolds.
Visit www.tewkesburypark.co.uk for more information and bookings.