Why The Westcliff Grand is England's best resort
Every other property on this site is a genuine piece of British history — a tower house, a Tudor castle, an Elizabethan manor. The Westcliff Grand is the deliberate exception: a full-scale resort hotel on the Dorset coast, built at resort scale rather than domestic scale, with a dedicated floor of tables as its centrepiece rather than a historical footnote. If you're searching for the best resort in England, this is the one property on this list built specifically for that brief — not a castle with a card table added as an afterthought, but a proper resort hotel from the ground up.
Where Dalhousie Castle or Cliveden House reward a slow, quiet few days, The Westcliff Grand is built for a different kind of evening entirely: dinner, the floor, and a sea-view room to sleep it off in. It's the one entry here that belongs on a UK resort shortlist as much as a historic-hotels one.
Inside the floor
The floor occupies the hotel's original ballroom, and it's been kept deliberately old-world rather than modernised into a generic hall — crystal chandeliers overhead, a baby grand piano in the corner, and a dealt game under proper table lamps rather than fluorescent strip lighting. Roulette, blackjack and a dedicated poker room run most evenings, with a smaller late-night slots room off to one side for anyone who'd rather play solo.
Smart dress is expected on the floor after 7pm — jacket for men, nothing more formal required — and entry to the floor itself is restricted to over-18s with valid photo ID, separate from your room key and checked at a dedicated desk rather than at hotel reception. As with any UK resort, it's worth checking the house rules and any membership requirements directly with the hotel before you travel if you want a smooth first evening.
Rooms and suites at this English resort hotel
The Westcliff Grand runs considerably larger than the other five properties on this site — well over a hundred rooms across the main building and two wings, which means a wider spread of room categories than a small historic house hotel could ever offer. Three tiers cover most of what's actually bookable.
Classic Sea View Room
A generously sized double with a full sea view, period furnishings and a marble bathroom — the standard room category across most of the main building.
Grand Suite
A separate sitting room alongside the bedroom, a bay window overlooking the gardens and the coast, and a short private corridor to the floor's stairs.
Penthouse Suite
The top-floor suite: a wraparound sea-view terrace, a private lounge, and priority seating reserved at the floor's main tables most evenings.
Getting to the UK's best resort
The Westcliff Grand sits on the Dorset coast, roughly two and a half hours from London by car or just over two hours by train to Bournemouth followed by a short taxi along the seafront. There's no direct rail link right to the door, so a taxi or hire car from the nearest station is the realistic last leg, the same as several of the historic houses on this list.
Good to know before you book
Unlike the five historic houses on this site, weekends here sell out for the floor's headline tables rather than for a specific historic bedroom — book several weeks ahead for a Friday or Saturday. Package rates bundling a room with table credit are usually the better value over booking the room and an evening separately, and it's worth confirming the current dress code and any membership sign-up directly with the hotel, as these UK resort rules can change season to season.