STay & Play THE mERE

Jeremy Ellwood discovers first-rate accommodation and a fine James Braid course not far from the M6

The Golf Par 71, 6,566 yards The Mere’s James Braid parkland course is an easy-walking layout with a few more pronounced undulations and slopes over an excellent closing stretch. This starts from the 15th, a cracking down-and-up par 4 with a solitary pine at 200 yards and a stream just beyond that. The 16th is perhaps the strongest of all the par 4s, sweeping some 440 yards round to the left to a testing and well-bunkered green. The par-5 18th then sweeps the other way back round to the lake at The Mere, and with the right drive, there’s every chance of getting to the green in two. The practice range, which flanks the 1st, is unique as you really do hit balls out into The Mere – not your own, obviously! Also play… Harry Colt’s beautiful parkland layout at Prestbury Golf Club (prestburygolfclub.com) lies just 14 miles east of The Mere. Accommodation The Mere has 81 comfortable rooms and suites equipped to a very high standard overlooking the lake, the golf course, the tennis courts or the rolling Cheshire countryside. All offer Sky TV, free Wi-Fi, tea/coffee-making facilities and a cuddly ‘Merekat’ toy to keep the kids, and maybe the adults, amused. The tennis courts are beside the lake, and there is also an extremely well-equipped health club, plus a spa offering a bewildering array of treatments from lava shell full body massages to Rasul thermal mud heaven! Dining options range from the two AA-rosette Browns restaurant, to The Club Lounge and The Spa Lounge and Bar, with the Club Lounge looking out over The Mere lake. Where else… The Anderton Boat Lift (canalrivertrust.org.uk) just 20 minutes away is an ingenious masterpiece of waterways engineering – the Victorians at their very best. The par-4 16th