On the rise

In my job, I am lucky enough to be invited to stay at some of the nicest hotels in the country.

Unfortunately, I have to turn most of these kind and wonderful offers down. As nice as it would be to spend my life gallivanting from one luxury property to the next, for so many reasons, it’s not realistically possible. 

However, when an invitation dropped into my inbox from the Coniston Hotel Country Estate & Spa in North Yorkshire, I knew I had to make it happen, come hell or high water. 

You see, my first ever job as a trainee reporter was on a local newspaper in the Yorkshire Dales. Amid the usual fare of village fetes and people pointing at potholes, one of my most memorable assignments was to cover the opening of the brand new shooting range at the Coniston, which was then building its reputation as one of the best luxury hotels in the area. It was my first real experience of a country estate hotel, and I’d never been anywhere like it. 

So to go back the best part of 20 years later and see exactly how the Coniston had fared in the meantime – well, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. 

I was treated to a Land Rover Experience, where I buckled up in a £130k Range Rover from the estate’s fleet.  

My instructor Rachel expertly took me through the basics of how to handle this mighty motor, working our way around the hotel’s purpose built driving courses before eventually arriving at “The Playpen”, a huge specially-designed field where you can test the Range Rover to the limit, crawling over rocks, down vertiginious descents, driving through swamps and even up and down stone steps.

The combination of breath-taking views, high-octane thrills and highly-trained experts, made for a truly memorable experience; I can imagine the excitement of going head to head with work colleagues would really spark any team building session into life. 

The shooting ground that I first visited all those years ago remains one of the best in the country, attracting Olympic and world-level shooters from across the UK thanks to the high level of facilities on offer. With a traditional Canadian shoot lodge to warm up in during the winter months, as well as archery and rifle ranges and experienced coaches on hand to offer advice, it's the ideal all-weather activity. 

Finally on the team building front, the estate has its very own 24-acre lake that can play host to activities including dragon boat racing and raft building duing the summer months. The hotel partners with M&IT Award-winning KDM Events to tailor team building activities from obstacle courses to survival challenges.