HTML MakerQueen Victoria and Churchill have both sojourned at this fantasy Victorian mansion on the fringes of the Berwyn Mountains and Snowdonia National Park. It's furnished with impeccable style, wows diners with imaginative riffs on regional, seasonal ingredients, and holds Wales’ first Michelin Green Star.
Take the lonely country road that whips over the moors where waterfalls crash down the sides of bare, brooding mountains and you’ll get a true flavour of just how remote Palé Hall is. This rurality is intrinsic to its charm. Sitting in its own 50-acre estate the Victorian manor looks proudly out across lawns and wooded hills that slope down to the River Dee, seemingly immune to time and trends. Four miles from Bala, it’s on the cusp of the Snowdonia National Park and wild, forgotten Berwyn Mountains, where you can dive in at the outdoor adventure deep end. For those coming by train from England, the easiest station is Chester, just over an hour’s drive away.
You can really make an entrance at Palé Hall. Designed in flamboyant Jacobean style for high-flying railway engineer Henry Robertson in 1871, it is fabulously regal, with its spire, porte-cochère, stained-glass skylight and a grand hall, hand-stencilled by the owner. Time has been kind to the manor, with every intricate tile intact, every beautifully carved wooden banister gleaming partly because it was barely used when owned by the Duke of Westminster in the 1950s as a base for shooting. The wealth of period features are complemented by owner Angela Harper’s keen eye for decoration, making liberal use of antiques, Zoffany and Sanderson wallpapers, paintings (including Snowdonia artist Rob Reen’s striking canvases of sheep) and collections of glass. Palé Hall has a new string to its eco-friendly bow, as the holder of Wales’ first Michelin Green Star, awarded for impeccable eco credentials. The hotel has its own carbon-neutral source of energy, courtesy of its on-site hydroelectric plant, protects wildlife habitats and offers free electric vehicle charging points. Head chef Gareth Stevenson takes sustainability seriously, too, as reflected in his carefully composed menus playing up provenance and seasonality.
Palé Hall aims for discreet, unobtrusive service and hits the mark perfectly – there’s no reception, per se, and staff are often invisible – magically appearing just when you need them and going above and beyond to make each stay seamless. General manager Debbie Cappadona runs a tight ship. Whatever you need, just say the word. The facilities are deliberately low-key and in keeping with a country manor of this calibre: walk the wooded grounds to a sunken garden, visit the resident donkey and Shetland ponies, go fishing, curl up in the library lounge with a good book, or fritter away an afternoon playing billiards. If you can tear yourself away (trust us, it’s tough), the rugged wilds of Snowdonia National Park and the far less-explored Berwyn Mountains are right on the doorstep. This is prime hiking terrain and the concierge team can point you in the direction of some memorable walks. Or, should you wish, they can hook you up with a local e-bike provider – the extra oomph is handy for negotiating these hills.
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Palé Hall Llandderfel, Gwynedd, Wales