NEWS
Check out Holdsworth House recommended by Jamie Oliver on his Guide to the Best of British Food App.
TV CHEF COOKS UP A STORM AT HOLDSWORTH HOUSE
Halifax hotel Holdsworth House was thrilled when TV superchef Jamie Oliver’s visited to film for his new book and Channel 4 series ‘Jamie’s Great Britain’. Culinary King Jamie spent five nights at West Yorkshire’s leading 3 star hotel in April this year and happily the sun shone all week long, showing Yorkshire at its beautiful best. Jamie Oliver and his 22 strong crew chose the Bronte Country hotel as the backdrop for filming some of his northern dishes. He is picture here with Gail Moss, co-owner of the hotel.
Using a number of areas, including the hotel’s historical Gazebo steps in the Parterre Garden, plus the family Wainstalls home of Holdsworth House co-owner Kim Wynn (Gail’s sister), Jamie cooked up mouth-watering dishes of Yorkshire Puddings, lamb shank, and Eccles cakes. With the Bronte Country backdrop, Jamie certainly did the region proud.
Holdsworth House’s General Manager, Shane Williams, said: “We only found out that we’d secured the crew’s stay a few days before they arrived, so it was all hands to the pump to make the necessary arrangements. Jamie’s personality off-screen mirrored his likeable on-screen character, in fact the staff voted Jamie’s team ‘the most polite film crews to have stayed ever’ and thankfully the sun shone all week, so things really couldn’t have gone any better.”
Gary Verity, Chief Executive of Welcome to Yorkshire tourism agency, added: “Featuring in such a new high profile programme is fantastic news for the excellent Holdsworth House, and indeed Halifax and Yorkshire as a whole. It helps raise the profile of the county as a great destination, and I’m sure that the team at Holdsworth made Jamie and the crew feel right at home and rolled out the famous warm Yorkshire welcome.”
During the filming week, Jamie Oliver visited various Yorkshire food experts and producers before returning each night to the hotel. Well-known for hosting weddings, Holdsworth House asked Jamie to say hello one evening to a bride who was getting married the following day and was a great fan, of course our favourite celebrity chef happily obliged. The end of the filming culminated in a large family-style picnic at Wainstalls, to which Jamie invited people he had spent the week meeting.
We think the hats that Jamie Oliver wears (and wore constantly whilst he was here) are fab. We found them available to buy at Lucky Seven.
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OCTOBER 2011
Holdsworth House partners with leading Dean Clough Cooking School to crown Yorkshire Master Chefs
Holdsworth House has teamed up with the world-class Cooking School at Dean Clough, Halifax to offer colleagues of Yorkshire businesses the chance to take part in Masterchef style cook-offs.
Through the innovative new partnership, companies will be able to add a unique team building element to meetings, which will not only test their mental and physical stamina but also their taste buds and culinary skills – and support the Cooking School, which is a registered charity.
As part of a meetings package at Holdsworth house, guests can visit the nearby Dean Clough Cooking School and, over a 5-hour or full day event, be put through their paces – creating dishes that will be judged by the School’s top chefs until a winner is crowned.
Holdsworth House, on the urban fringe of Halifax, is well known for weddings and is keen to now show how the Jacobean manor house is equally adept at tailoring meetings and events to the requirements of the modern venue booker.
Holdsworth House General Manager Shane Williams said: ‘Holdsworth House offers something completely different to a modern, corporate hotel, which is why we’re also popular as a wedding destination. But we also offer the mod cons – like free wifi and parking and a 2 AA Rosette Restaurant – often at a fraction of the price of most chains. By partnering with the Cooking School we’re showing that something special can be created on the doorstep for most Yorkshire-based businesses whilst supporting an fantastic charity at the same time.’
Gary Verity, Chief Executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: “It’s great to see two excellent tourism businesses working this closely together to complement each other - and is also another way of contributing to Yorkshire’s ever expanding business tourism offer.”
Not all hotels can accommodate teambuilding activities, but Holdsworth House is lucky. It not only has the celebrity-endorsed Cooking School less than 3 miles away, it has extensive grounds that are ideal for activities such as duck-herding, segways and archery – available through their professional partners, G3 Events. Holdsworth House can also offer a myriad of indoor team building sessions and event theming, putting it firmly on the map of top Yorkshire event venues.
Barbara Govan, Manager of The Cooking School commented “We are excited about working closely with Holdsworth House to offer a truly unique experience to conference delegates. Our state-of-the-art facility allows companies to build their team in a unique and fun way.”
Holdsworth House has 4 meeting rooms for up to 120 delegates. Master Chef events can be tailored for clients’ individual needs and timings. The hotel is also offering Cooking Breaks to tie in with the Cooking School’s excellent annual program of celebrity chef and family orientated cooking courses.
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John & Ringo Slept in My Bed – Yorkshire Post Magazine
IT may be almost half a century since the Fab Four checked in at a Calderdale country house hotel but the event remains just as memorable today as back then. In fact, the momentous visit of the Beatles to Holdsworth House, Halifax, is set to be enjoyed by a whole new audience thanks to author Martin Creasey who has included it in his book Beatlemania: The Real story of the Beatles UK Tours.
Between 1963 and 1965, The Beatles undertook six amazing UK tours and along the way met many fans whose memories of these encounters tell the real story of what actually happened when John, Paul, George and Ringo hit the road. It was as loud, chaotic and as exciting as anything Britain had ever seen. It was Beatlemania.
The book traces the trajectory of the UK tours and features interviews with scores of people whose paths crossed with the band. Among them is Gail Moss, who along with sister Kim Wynn, owns Holdsworth House. “We’re thrilled to be included in the new book,” she says. “We keep thinking interest in the visit will dwindle but it never seems to. People always want to hear about the time when the Beatles stayed here.”
It’s an occasion that Gail – and Kim – will certainly never forget. The beautiful old house at Holmfield on the outskirts of Halifax, now a hotel and restaurant, was owned by the girls’ late parents Freddie and Rita Pearson back then and was known as The Cavalier Country Club. The Pearsons’ good family friend just happened to be Stanley Corbett, the Beatles’ road manager.
“They had been playing at the Gaumont Theatre in Bradford and they needed a place to stay,” recalls Gail, who was 14 at the time – and very much a fan. “My father told me a couple of days before they arrived that they were coming and I think it was probably the hardest secret I have ever had to keep. I didn’t tell anyone though, not a soul and I remember when it had all happened and I went back to school, hardly anyone was talking to me,” she laughs.
The night in question was Friday, October 9, 1964 – John Lennon’s 24th birthday – and Gail recalls how it was around 11pm when the four Liverpool lads arrived after a bit of a diversion and the help of a police escort to keep their destination a secret – a plan which worked.
The original restaurant bill reveals that they tucked into prawn cocktail, melon, smoked trout and turtle soup, followed by steaks and duckling. Including the chauffeur’s dinner, the entire bill came to £17 6s (£17.30) – more than a week’s wages at the time. The bar bill, including whiskies, stouts and pints of Whitbread, came to £2 15s (£2.75) but it was only Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr who unwound in the bar until 1am – John Lennon had a toothache and went to bed early.
Because the business was just a country club and not a hotel, the Pearsons had to find beds for their visitors. “They actually ended up using ours. Can you imagine that?” says Gail. “John and Ringo slept in what was mine and my sister’s room (room 20, now the general manager’s room) and Paul and George slept in my parents’ bedroom. They borrowed twin beds especially. “I remember we had set up for them to have breakfast the following morning and they didn’t come down. I was walking up and down the corridor waiting. Eventually my mother grabbed me by the hand, knocked on the bedroom door where Paul and George were sleeping and thrust me inside. ‘My daughter has been waiting all morning to see you’ she said and left me there. I don’t know how she dared.”
Gail adds that George offered her a cigarette “which I refused” and asked if the old house was haunted. We’d been to Ibiza on holiday and I was chatting to Paul about that.
Kim, just eight at the time, admits the visit was “a little over my head”. “I was very shy and remember not wanting to meet them so I hid in the ladies’ cloakroom under a dressing table. All of a sudden this hand came through the curtains, a hand with rings on practically every finger. It was Ringo and he just said ‘come out and meet the lads’.”
The girls had their photos taken each sitting on McCartney’s knee. “Kim’s came out but unfortunately mine didn’t,” says Gail.
Because it had been Lennon’s birthday the girls gave him a Cavalier Country Club tie. “I don’t know if he ever wore it but he did remember the visit because he sent us a copy of his book In His Own Write.
Once news of the visit became public, the Pearson family was inundated with requests for souvenirs. “We still have the brass bedsteads which were on the beds they slept in and at one time the little gold knobs on the top used to disappear from time to time,” says Gail.
“Guests at Holdsworth House today are still intrigued by the visit. We’ve had lots of famous people and celebrities stay with us over the years but The Beatles – well they were huge weren’t they?”
Another author about music locations that contacted Holdsworth House for information on The Beatles, REM and Small Faces was Rock Atlas by David Roberts. Now available from good book shops and Amazon.
Rock Atlas features more than 600 great music locations throughout the UK and Ireland and the stories behind them. * Featuring landmark album cover locations, gravestones, plaques, recording locations, statues and sites of famous and infamous gigs. * Covering artists as diverse as The Beatles, Stones, The Who, Bowie, Bolan, New Order, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Queen, AC/DC, Michael Jackson, Sex Pistols, The Stranglers, Depeche Mode, Oasis, Arctic Monkeys, Adele, Kaiser Chiefs and Mumford & Sons. * Hundreds of rare and unseen pics including The Beatles, The Byrds, Jimi Hendrix, The Beach Boys, The Grateful Dead and many more! * Works on two levels: * A great book of short, amusing, ironic, insightful and entertaining stories. * A guide for those who want to seek out the spiritual experience of visiting rock s seminal sites including the one-hour stop on British soil by Elvis, the real Penny Lane or the statue of Jimi Hendrix and any number of iconic album cover shoot locations.
