A focaccia-making class in Nottinghamshire isn’t where I expected to engage in debate on modern food philosophy. Nevertheless, on a chilly December morning, fuelled by croissants, coffee and the warming glow of ovens in the School of Artisan Food, I receive Kevan Roberts’s culinary sermon. “Bread shouldn’t be forced,” the enthusiastic head of baking says as I prod my proving dough. He says that talk of the diminishing quality of bread in recent years often fails to pinpoint the reason; it’s actually because fermentation length has decreased. “What’s missing from the equation these days is time.”
Time. That’s something the Welbeck Estate, where the school is, knows plenty about. The former home of the dukes of Portland, the 15,000-acre estate has 12th-century roots as a monastery and is fringed by the ancient oaks of Sherwood Forest. More recently it’s been used for coalmining, as a college for the Ministry of Defence, then as mixed farming property — all the time largely cloistered from the public despite its location in the heart of England between Sheffield, Lincoln and Nottingham.
But times are changing, and the Welbeck owners, Alison Swan Parente and Will Parente, recognise the need to promote a new thriving, sustainable economic community on the estate. Driven by a family passion for food, numerous culinary attractions have cropped up, and increasingly they’re open to the public.
A cookery school, farm shop and brewery have existed on the vast landscape for several years, and new holiday cottages — including a just-opened large house that’s perfect for groups — allow guests to stay on the estate, within easy reach of all the tasty delights. The limestone gorge of Creswell Crags is a short walk from Welbeck, and you’re near stately homes, abbeys and other attractions. But it’s only too easy to spend a whole well-fed weekend without leaving the estate. You might spend your morning at a cookery class, have lunch at the estate’s café, then work up an appetite on a walk through the woods before dinner sourced from the farm shop — or catered by estate staff — in your holiday home.
“It all started with the cheese impresario Randolph Hodgson,” Alison tells me in the school kitchen as my finished focaccia cools. Along with the cheesemaker Joe Schneider, Hodgson, the founder of Neal’s Yard Dairy, was looking to produce a traditional unpasteurised blue cheese. Welbeck had the organic dairy herd he needed and the popular Stichelton was born on the estate grounds in 2006, followed by a farm shop selling the cheese, founded by Alison’s son, Joe.
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“I had recently retired from the NHS, so I spent a lot of time in his farm shop, telling him labels didn’t look right and that he was sourcing pears from the wrong place,” she says. “So he said to me, ‘Just get out of my farm shop and do something of your own, thank you very much.’ I’ve been interested in long-fermentation bread ever since I Iived as a hippy in America in the 1970s, so I opened a bakery.”
Alongside the bakery Alison also founded the School of Artisan Food to train staff to make “real” bread (schoolofartisanfood.org). Courses eventually expanded to include everything from butchery to cheesemaking, for amateurs and professionals, and it provides food education to school children and NHS workers.
Welbeck had plenty more culinary goodies waiting for me. Just down the lane from the cookery school, the estate-owned Welbeck Abbey Brewery brews just 17,000 pints a week for pubs and shops within a 30-mile radius. Beers, including the auburn Red Feather, show off the excellent local water as well as ingredients such as Welbeck-grown elderflower and the bakery’s leftover baguettes. Once a month or so the brewery opens for public tours (or on special request for groups) and it’s my lucky day to have a peek. Still, I have to admit my favourite Welbeck liquid stop is a few more paces away: DropWorks Distillery.
The rum-maker Lewis Hayes uses a cavernous former farm building as his distillery and tasting room. He’s one of several food-focused tenants who occupy Welbeck’s estate buildings, and like the others here he’s focused on artisanal quality. He imports and stores his own molasses for distillation and is experimenting with cane honey and wild yeasts to make seriously characterful rum. He has big plans for the future. “There are miles of old tunnels on the estate, built by the 5th Duke, which I’m hoping one day I can use for ageing,” he says. “I’d also love to age the rum in a barrel made from Welbeck-grown wood. I just need a tree to fall over!”
Welbeck’s forested grounds are magnificent. Walkers can follow part of the Robin Hood Way or take short rambles past leafy ravines, Hansel and Gretel cottages and a herd of white deer. Art is another draw. The Portland Collection near the cookery school contains National Gallery-worthy oils, a Michelangelo sketch and the pearl earring that Charles I wore at his beheading (free; harleyfoundation.org.uk). Meanwhile, for architecture enthusiasts, the 18th-century Welbeck Abbey opens on select dates each year for tours (£30).
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And now this can all be combined in a short break. Of the 350 buildings on the estate, a handful have recently been transformed into low-key holiday lets. Near Lewis’s distillery, for example, the Winnings are two four-person cottages in magnificent 19th-century almshouses. But the pièce de résistance is the just-opened Cuckney House, sleeping 31 people over 15 bedrooms in the grade II listed former home of the duke’s agents.
Most of Welbeck’s holiday cottages are restrained in design, with neutral tones, classic kitchens and wood-burners, but Cuckney House is a bold modern statement: eye-catching wallpapers, juicy colour pops, plush furnishings and quirky art fill the rambling space after two years of painstaking renovations. High-end and customisable — you can self-cater or be pampered, hire it for a wedding party or a big birthday — it brings all the foodie cred of Welbeck Estate together in one building.
After I’ve dropped my overnight bag in the honeymoon suite, which has a modern-minimalist four-poster, a tiled fireplace and a big bathroom with double-shower, I get a taste of what the Welbeck team can do. Lewis gives a cocktail-making masterclass (from £65pp) and serves zingy apple daiquiris in the soaring-ceilinged events room. In the garden, Sally-Ann Hunt, a butchery tutor from the School of Artisan Food, grills estate venison and lamb, explaining how she can cater meals or teach courses in the large Cuckney House kitchen (barbecue demo with tasters from £125pp). For an extra charge, staff will fill the house with goodies from the farm shop or bakery too. The gleaming bar has been stocked with beers from Welbeck Abbey Brewery and by the lounge’s crackling fire is an array of cakes from the bakery.
With a contemporary and luxurious feel, Cuckney House is a new chapter in hospitality for Welbeck. But with 15,000 acres and countless other historic buildings — including a now-vacant ornate riding school — awaiting redevelopment, it feels like only the beginning.
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“If you asked people in the 1970s what was next for the estate, they wouldn’t have dreamt of food,” Alison says. “As for what’s next — you’ll have to ask my children.” Maybe it’s the voice of Kevan still ringing in my ears, but I think all that’s missing from the equation here is a little bit of time.
Alicia Miller was a guest of Welbeck Estate, which has three nights for four from £390. A self-catering stay for 31 in Cuckney House costs from £6,200 for two nights (welbeck.co.uk)
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