£1.5m manor house and golf course sold

AHOTEL and golf business in a Devon manor house built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel has been sold for about £1.5million.

Welbeck Manor Hotel and Sparkwell Golf Course, on the edge of Plymouth, went on the market as a going concern at the end of 2020.

The business and property, which had a guide price of £1.5million and comes with planning permission for additional accommodation, has now been sold, but the new owner has yet to be revealed, though the website boasts it is “independent and family owned”.

The 19th Century building (picture right) has 14 bedrooms, each with views of Dartmoor, and sits in about 55 acres of parkland, now used as a nine-hole golf course.

Engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, who designed the Royal Albert rail bridge across the nearby Tamar, built the manor in 1847.

The property now has a lounge, bar and restaurant, and a catering kitchen services both the golf club and the hotel.

The bedrooms comprise of six doubles, six twins, a family room and a bridal suite as the business provides for wedding receptions and the sellers said there is a great deal of scope to grow this element of the business.

Sparkwell Golf Course was designed and built in the grounds of the manor in 1993 and the golf club has about 80 members.

It received conditional planning approval, in 2018, for extensions and alterations to the hotel, with some additional bedrooms already added, and included conversion of the former coach house to use as ancillary guest/golf accommodation.

The hotel and golf course were being sold as a going concern and it was said that the site may lend itself to other uses subject to the granting of the necessary consents.

Andrew Bullivant, partner at Plymouth’s Atwell Martin, which marketed the property, said: “This is a wonderful opportunity in a beautiful setting to build on a remarkable legacy and create something very special indeed.”